Kinetics study of Congo red dye adsorption from aqueous solutions onto bentonite; [Étude cinétique de l'adsorption du rouge de Congo sur une bentonite]

Industrial growth and technological advancement have led globally to the introduction of pollutants of diverse nature into water bodies. Such pollutants include dyes, organic contaminants and heavy metals. Their presence in industrial effluents or drinking water is a public health problem, due to their absorption and possible accumulation in living organisms. Water pollution regulations require textile dye industries to reduce substantially the amount of colour in their effluents. Adsorption, as a wastewater treatment process, exploits the ability of some solids to concentrate certain substances from solution onto their surface. The most commonly used adsorbent for the treatment of textile effluents is activated carbon. The ability of bentonite to remove colour was recognized some time ago. Batch adsorption experiments are used easily in the laboratory for the treatment of small volumes of effluents. Batch adsorption provides certain preliminary information such as the pH for maximum adsorption, the maximum initial dye concentration, the particle size for optimum adsorption, the mass of adsorbent, the temperature and time of the separation process. Experiments were conducted in this study using bentonite. The dye used in all experiments was Congo red. The initial dye concentration was 30 mg•L-1 and was determined spectrophotometrically at the wavelength of maximum absorbance. The time required to reach equilibrium was about 2 h. The effect of agitation, initial dye concentration, mass of adsorbent and mean particle diameter were investigated. It appears that the rate of dye removal: (i) increased with the agitation speed and mass of adsorbent and, (ii) decreased with the initial dye concentration and the particle size. Five models for external transport were used to calculate the external mass transfer coefficient, kf, and the results showed that this coefficient is in the range of 10-5-10-4•ms-1.