Removal of Textile Wastewater Pollutants Using Zeolite Mineral as Adsorbent: Isotherm Studies

Abstract

Heavy metals and organic pollutants may represent long-term hazards to the ecosystem and human health, thus it is important to discover a safe and efficient way to remove pollutants from the environment. Widely varied techniques, such as adsorption for color removal from industrial wastewater, have therefore been developed. Due to its ease of use, its simplicity, ecofriendly and reduced cost as compared to other conventional methods, the adsorption process has been widely used for wastewater treatment. In this study, natural Clinoptilolite zeolite (NCZ) was employed as a high-capacity and low cost adsorbent. Using natural Clinoptilolite zeolite to adsorb dyes is essential for determining how wastewater treatment facilities remove the dye. A series of laboratory adsorption experiments were conducted for equilibrium reactions to study the effect of essential parameters for dye removal, including the amount of zeolite adsorbent 0.03 to 1 g, the methylene blue (MB) and eosin yellow (EY) dye concentration (50 to 200 ppm), the pH value 3 to 11, and the contact time 30 to 120 minutes. The selected range of operating factors was designed using the response surface method to establish a mathematical model that describes the adsorption process .Results showed that the optimum values of these factors to remove methylene blue dye were: 1 g of adsorbent dose, 50 mg/l of MB dye during 80 min at pH of 11 with removal efficiency reached to 99.9 %. ,and the optimum values of these factors to remove eosin yellow dye were: 0.03 g of adsorbent dose, 200mg/l of EY dye during 120 min at pH of 3 with removal efficiency reached to 98 %,also two models (Langmuir and Freundlich) isotherms were studied, Freundlich was best fitted model with a correlation of 0.9737, which suggesting a multilayer adsorption.