Dyes Removal from Aqueous Solution using Chemical Treated Empty Fruit Bunch at Various pH

Abstract

There is a considerable need for the removal of color from wastewater/effluents. The discharge of dyebearing wastewater into natural streams and rivers from the textile, paper, carpet, leather, distillery, and printing industries poses severe problems. Nowadays, about 9000 types of dyes have been incorporated in the colour index. Due to low biodegradability of dyes, the discharge of coloured wastewater from these industries had caused many significant problems, such as increasing the toxicity and COD (chemical oxygen demand) of the effluent. Most of the dyes are very stable, either to photodegradation, biodegradation or oxdizing agents. Currently, several physical and chemical processes are used for dyes wastewater treatment. However, these processes are highly cost and not efficient for the treatment of wide range of dye wastewater. Empty fruit bunch is an agro-waste from the oil palm industries, which used as a fuel for the boiler, to generate heat to the factory. In this study, empty fruit bunch is pretreated with sulphuric acid. The treated empty fruit bunch adsorption on the methylene blue was investigated for the various initial pH at room temperature. The finding was compared with the commercial powdered activated carbon (PAC). The result shows that the removal of dyes was unaffected by pH for PAC, and the pH range 5-8 was favorable for dyes removal by chemical treated empty fruit bunch.