Competitive Adsorption of Methylene Blue and Rhodamine B on Natural Zeolite: Thermodynamic and Kinetic Studies

A batch system was applied to study the adsorption behavior of methylene blue (MB) and rhodamine B (RB) in single and binary component systems on natural zeolite. In the single component systems, the zeolite presents higher adsorption capacity for MB than RB with the maximal adsorption capacity of 7.95×10^?5 and 1.26×10^?5 mol/g at 55°C for MB and RB, respectively. Kinetic studies indicated that the adsorption followed pseudo‐second‐ order kinetics and could be described by a two‐step diffusion process. For the single component systems, the adsorption isotherm could be fitted by the Langmuir model. In the binary component system, MB and RB exhibit competitive adsorption on the zeolite. The adsorption is approximately reduced to 50% and 60% of single component adsorption systems of MB and RB, respectively at an initial concentration of 6×10^?6 mol·L^?1 at 25°C. In the binary component system, kinetic and adsorption isotherm studies demonstrate that the experimental data are following pseudo‐second‐order kinetics and Langmuir isotherm and kinetic data are fairly described by a two‐step diffusion model. Effect of solution pH on adsorption of MB and RB in both single and binary component systems was studied and the results were described by electrostatic interactions.