Adsorption of Organic Dyes on Non-conventional and Inexpensive Adsorbent

Studies were conducted for the adsorption of textile organic dyes on sawdust of Olea ferruginea. The results revealed that sawdust of Olea ferruginea has fairly high adsorption capacity for textile dyes (VAT Black-4, VAT Blue-20, VAT Green-9, VAT Orange-3RT, VAT Pink-R, VAT Purple-3G, and VAT Red-F3B), collected from local market. Various parameters, such as the amount of adsorbent, reuse of the adsorbent and pH were studied to assess the adsorption capacity of the sawdust. The percent adsorption recorded on 1.0 g of adsorbent were 51% (Black-4), 94% (Blue-20), 75% (Green-9), 85% (Orange-3RT), 81% (Pink-R), 94% (Purple-3G), and 93% (Red-F3B). The results on 2.0 g of adsorbent were found to be 62% (Black-4), 94% (Blue-20), 34% (Green-9), 70% (Orange-3RT), 87% (Pink-R), 74% (Purple-3G), and 82% (Red-F3B). The adsorbent was reused to check its efficacy after being used once and the percent adsorptions of 18.5% (Black), 3.3% (Blue), 40.9% (Green), 30% (Orange), 61.5% (Pink), 26.9% (Purple), and 66.6% (Red) were recorded. The effect of pH was also studied by varying the pH from 2 to 10. Results revealed that pH also has a profound effect on the adsorption capacity of various dyes.