Methyl Red Removal from Aqueous Solution by using Treated sugarcane bagasse

Abstract

Dyes are used in various industries, such as food, paper, carpet and others. Among these, textile industries rank first in the usage of dyes. The discharge of coloured wastewater from these industries had caused many significant problems, namely increasing the toxicity and COD (chemical oxygen demand) of the effluent. The adsorption process had been proven to be the most effective method in the dyes removal. But, commercially available activated carbon is very expensive. This had lead to the further studies for cheap substitution. In this study, sugarcane bagasse - an agro industry waste were used to remove the dyes from the aqueous solution in a batch reactor. The formaldehyde treated (PCSB) and sulphuric acid treated (PCSBC) sugarcane bagasse were used to adsorb methyl red at various adsorbent dosage. Similar experiment was conducted using commercially used powder activated carbon (PAC), in order to evaluate the performance of PCSB and PCSBC. This study had shown that the PCSB and PCSBC could be employed and has a potential for low cost alternative in the wastewater treatment for dyes removal.