Removal of methylene blue from textile waste water using kaolin and zeolite-x synthesized from Ethiopian kaolin

Abstract

The wastewater generated from textile factories is linked to one of the main water pollution problems; therefore, it is important to reduce the pollutants in industrial effluents before their discharge into environment. The present study was to investigate the appropriateness zeolite-x and kaolin as effective adsorbents for removal of methylene blue from the textile wastewater. Batch adsorption experiments were carried out to assess parameters that influence the adsorption process. The prepared zeolite-x and kaolin were characterized by Fourier Transform Infrared and X-ray diffraction techniques. The results of this study showed that the particle size is 40.77 nm and 0.45 nm kaolin and zeolite-x respectively. The performance of zeolite-x adsorbent is best at the optimum pH 4 with removal efficiency of 97.77% and kaolin adsorbent at pH 6 with removal efficiency of 86.86%. The optimum contact time was obtained at 60 and 80 minutes for zeolite–x and kaolin respectively. While optimum adsorbent dosage was obtained at 0.4 and 0.6 grams with removal efficiency of 97.12% and 87.75% for the zeolite-x and kaolin adsorption experiment respectively. The confirmed square sum errors values are 1.0×10-4 and 1.0×10-3 for zeolite-x and kaolin, respectively. The Adsorption isotherms results have well fitted to Freundlich isotherm than Langmuir isotherm. The adsorption kinetics results were best fitted the pseudo second order model. The result shows that the zeolite-x has high removal efficiency than kaolin at the same operating conditions. Application of this method can be economically, environmentally, and socially feasible to address wastewater problems. Further research has to be carried out on the removal capacity of this adsorbent for organic dyes not only from the textile industry but also from leather industries and soap industries.