A STUDY ON REMOVAL OF CONGO RED DYE FROM THE EFFLUENTS OF TEXTILE INDUSTRY USING RICE HUSK CARBON ACTIVATED BY STEAM

Authors: Jyoti Sharma a and Beena Janveja b

a Department of Chemistry, R. R. College, Alwar (Rajasthan) India- 301001;b Department of Chemistry, K. L. Mehta D. N. College For Women, Faridabad (Haryana) India;*E-mail: beena_sethi@rediffmail.com

In the present paper adsorption technique was employed for removal of Congo-Red dye. Congo-Red dye is a carcinogenic dye which comes in the effluents of textile industries during dyeing and rinsing processes. The technique was found to be very useful and cost effective for a better removal of dye. Although commercial activated carbon is a preferred sorbent for colour removal, its wide spread use is restricted due to high cost. Currently, the study of activated rice husk carbon as a low cost sorbent for removing dye has drawn attention of various researchers working in this field. In the present work, rice husk carbon (RHCAS) in the form of powder was investigated for removing dyes taking Congo Red as a model system. The adsorbent was made from rice husk procured from Kerala and was investigated under variable system parameters such as agitation time and dose of adsorbent. An amount of 0.08 g/l of RHCAS could remove 10 to 99 % of the dye from an aqueous solution of 25 ppm with the agitation time increasing from20 min to 200 min. The interactions were tested for both pseudo first- order and second – order kinetics and it was observed that the interactions could be better explained on the basis of first order kinetics.

Keywords : Activated carbon, adsorption, effluents, congo red, contact time, rice husk