Biosorption of Reactive Red 120 dye by Pyracantha coccinea berries powdered biomass

Abstract

This work investigates the adsorptive properties of Pyracantha coccinea berries powdered biomass (BPC) towards Reactive Red 120 (RR120) in an aquatic system. The morphological and structural features of BPC particles were examined before and after the adsorption of RR120 through field emission-scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (XEDS), elemental analysis and attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR). Various adsorption parameters were explored. The application of adsorption isotherms and kinetic models showed that Langmuir and PS2 models provide the best fitting parameters (R2 > 0.99). The qmax is calculated to be 22.01 mg/g at pH 2.0 and T= 295 K. The relative removal efficiency rises with temperature from qmax = 22.01 mg/g (295 K) to qmax = 31.2 mg/g (323 K) and the positive ΔH0 value obtained from the thermodynamic study indicates an endothermic and entropy-governed adsorption process. The increase of the ionic strength was found to favor the dye removal and the associated qmax values increased from 21.2 mg/g to 28.9 mg/g.

Keywords

• Biomass
• Sorption
• Isotherm
• Kinetics
• Thermodynamic studies
• (Waste)water treatment