Nickel and methylene blue removal efficiency using durian rind powder

Abstract

Heavy metals and dyes are major contaminants from industrial wastewater which causes extensive damage to the environment. This study aims to examine the potential of durian rind as a low cost adsorbent which can potentially be replaced activated carbon the conventional adsorbent. Durian rind which is an agricultural waste is prepared in powder form. Several factors such as pH, contact time and initial adsorbate concentration were studied to develop an adsorption equilibrium study to determine the adsorption capacity and analyze the suitability of the adsorption process. From this study, higher pH conditions were determined to be the optimum condition for the adsorption process for both Nickel and dyes. The contact time study revealed that the adsorption process occurs swiftly where the adsorption reaches saturation at 30 minutes. From the factors studied in this research study, the highest removal and lowest removal for nickel was 52.87% and 23.57% respectively. Meanwhile higher adsorption was obtained with the adsorption of dyes as of 95.91% and lowest adsorption percentage of 87.46%. The adsorption equilibrium study analysis portrayed that the adsorption data were better represented by Langmuir model than Freundlich model. It also showed that the adsorption process was suitable and adsorption capacity reduced in the order of Methylene Blue and Nickel at 84.75 mg/g and 12.18 mg/g respectively.