Investigation of a Palm Fronds as Affordable Adsorbent for Eliminate Dye from Wastewater

The textile industry discharges large amounts of dye-contaminated water annually to environment, which is harmful to our environment and aquatic life. This study investigates the utilization of palm frond (PF) an inexpensive and largely available agricultural waste material to eliminate methylene blue (MB) present in effluent. To solve this problem, PF were harvested, and characterized by SEM, EDS and FTIR.
Batch experiments were then conducted using several main variables which are: pH, time of contact, amount of adsorbent and initial concentration from dye. Removal efficiency was found to be as high as 97.28% at an equilibrium time of 60 min and 30°C under alkaline conditions (pH 12). Adsorption isotherms fitted laboriously to different models were analyzed, leading to very close correlation fits (Langmuir R² = 0.9855; Freundlich R² = 0.9919; Temkin R² = 0.8826), while neither isotherm adequately describes the data except for the Freundlich model indicating a heterogeneous adsorptive surface in these experiments across our experimental range of concentrations tested. Kinetic analysis showed that it corresponds to a model of pseudo second order, which chemisorption represent the major rate controlling process. These results show that palm fronds are a potent, inexpensive, and locally available adsorbent for remediation of contaminated dye wastewater.