COMPARATIVE STUDY ON THE EFFICIENCIES OF ORANGE AND LEMON PEEL IN THE REMOVAL OF DYE FROM TEXTILE INDUSTRY EFFLUENT

Use of various dyes in order to color the products is a common practice in composite textile industry. The presence of these dyes in water even at low concentration is highly visible and undesirable. This comparative study was carried out for the utilization of orange peel and lemon peel as adsorbent for the removal of dyes from wastewater and to establish it as a standard wastewater treatment process for textile industry. This experiment was performed in the laboratory scale and batch adsorption studies were conducted. The raw materials were obtained and treated for the removal of dyes at different dosages. The use of cheap and ecofriendly adsorbents were studied in this paper as an alternative substitution of activated carbon for removal of dyes from textile industry effluent. Adsorbents prepared from orange peel and lemon peel which are domestic wastes which are easily available were successfully tested and used to remove the dye, methylene blue from an aqueous solution in a batch wise column. This study investigates the potential use of natural materials namely, orange peel and lemon peel pretreated with nominal treatment method, for removal of methylene blue from simulated wastewater. Treated orange peel and lemon peel were used to study the adsorbtion methylene blue at varies dosages.