Cellulose modified diatomite for toluene removal from aqueous solution

The presence/existence of harmful aromatic compounds, such as toluene in water poses a significant environmental hazard. Thus, their elimination from water is required. In this regard, here we found an efficient methodology for the removal of toluene using diatomite-cellulose (modified diatomite). The chemical treatments were used to obtain cellulose from sisal fibres and to modify the diatomite. All the adsorbents were characterised via X-ray florescence (XRF), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Thermogravimetry (TGA) and Brauner-Emmett-Teller (BET) techniques. The impact of adsorption parameters, such as pH, contact time and initial toluene concentration on the adsorption (%) of toluene was evaluated. The maximum percentage removal of toluene on the natural diatomite was observed to be 79.33% (142.30 mg/g) at pH 6, temperature 22 degrees C, an agitation speed of 150 rpm, adsorbent dosage of 0.1 g and initial concentration of 3x10(-3) mol/L toluene. Furthermore, under the same conditions, the percentage increase to 97.45% (161.43 mg/g) was observed for the modified diatomite. The kinetic data was conforming to the pseudo-second order model with good correlation. The results showed that the adsorption of toluene could be described by Freundlich isotherm model on the natural and modified diatomite. Thus, our work revealed that the diatomite-cellulose could be used as an effective adsorbent to remove toluene from water.