Applicability of waste materials--bottom ash and deoiled soya--as adsorbents for the removal and recovery of a hazardous dye, brilliant green

Deoiled soya, an agricultural waste material, and bottom ash, a waste of power plants, have been successfully used for the removal and recovery of the hazardous water-soluble dye brilliant green from water. To remove the dye from water, batch adsorption studies have been carried out by observing the effects of pH, concentration, amounts of adsorbents, size of adsorbent particles, etc. Attempts have also been made to monitor the adsorption process through Langmuir, Freundlich, Tempkin, and D-R adsorption isotherm models. Relevant thermodynamic parameters have also been calculated from these models. The adsorption process has been found endothermic and feasible at all the temperatures. The kinetics of the adsorption was also recorded and indicates pseudo-second-order kinetics in both cases. Kinetic operations also reveal the involvement of a film diffusion mechanism for the deoiled soya adsorption at all the temperatures, while bottom ash undergoes through a particle diffusion mechanism at only 30 °C and at higher temperatures a film diffusion mechanism operates. Bulk removal of the dye has been carried out through column studies for both adsorbents. Attempts have also been made to recover the dye from exhausted columns by eluting sulfuric acid of pH 3.