Sorption Studies of Dyestuffs on Low-cost Adsorbent

This work presents the results of sorption studies of orange G and phenol Red dyes onto palm kernel shell activated carbon (PKS-AC). The adsorbent was prepared by chemical activation using zinc chloride. The effect of various parameters such pH, initial ion concentration, contact time, temperature and adsorbent dosage has been investigated in the present study. The result showed that the percentage removal of dye was concentration dependent, decreasing with an increase in dye concentration. Isotherm modelling was investigated and Freundlich isotherm model fits the equilibrium data very well. The kinetic modelling showed that Pseudo-first orders kinetic model best described the kinetics of the adsorption. The thermodynamic parameters were evaluated. The negative values of ∆G and ∆H indicate that adsorption process was spontaneous and exothermic. The negative value of ∆S shows decreased randomness with the adsorption. The study has shown that palm kernel shell activated carbon is a good adsorbent for the removal of phenol red and orange G dyes respectively.