Studies on Removal of Methylene Blue Color Using Sawdust as Adsorbent

Large quantities of dyes are utilized by the textile industry. Mainly due to their extensive application in the dyeing of cotton, about 20-30% of all of the dyestuffs used worldwide are reactive dyes. Biodegradation of this group of compounds is significantly slower than that of acid and direct dyes. The persistent nature of reactive dyes complicates wastewater treatment within the textile industry. Removal of dyestuffs from wastewater occurs by either biological methods or physicochemical methods (e.g., adsorption, oxidation-reduction, chemical coagulation, ozone treatment, and membrane filtration). Low cost adsorbents have gained attention over decades as a means of achieving very high removal efficiency to meet discharge standards. The saw dust is a potentially useful material for the removal of dyes from industrial wastewater. It is suggested that the work is designed to increase the scale of saw dust application to cope with the removal of methylene blue component under industrial conditions should be initiated. The saw dust has a substantially larger capacity to remove the reactive dye by Adsorption than all of the other components. The performance analysis was carried out as function of various operating parameters such as contact time, initial concentration of dye, adsorbent dose, particle size and pH. Performance studies revealed that a very high percentage removal of color was achievable. Detailed data analysis indicated that the Adsorption of methylene blue followed Freundlich isotherm and Langmuir isotherm. Comparative study was also done on the Adsorption of methylene blue with other adsorbents on the basis of contact time.