Equilibrium and kinetic studies of acid dye adsorption on palm oil empty fruit bunch

Abstract

Palm oil empty fruit bunch (POEFB), an agricultural waste, used as low-cost adsorbent for removal Acid Orange 51 (AO51) dye from aqueous solutions was studied. Batch mode experiments were carried out at room temperature (28 ± 2) °C to study the effects of contact time and initial dye concentrations (10-200 mg/L). The equilibrium adsorption data of AO51 dye on empty fruit bunch were analyzed by three isotherms, namely the Langmuir isotherm, Freundlich isotherm and Temkin isotherm model. The result indicated that the equilibrium sorption fitted well with the Freundlich isotherm, displaying higher regression coefficient, R2value. The monolayer adsorption capacity of POEFB was found to be 166.67 mg/g. The kinetic data obtained at different concentrations have been analyzed using the pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order and intraparticle diffusion models. It was shown that pseudo-second-order kinetic model could best describe the adsorption kinetics.