UTILIZATION OF BANANA PEEL AS A BIOSORBENT FOR THE REMOVAL OF BASIC RED 29 FROM AQUEOUS SOLUTION

The banana peel powder (BPP) was used as a low-cost adsorbent for the adsorption of Basic Red 29 (BR29) dye from aqueous solution. The FTIR, AFM and SEM analysis were conducted for the characterization of BPP. The effects of initial dye concentrations, contact time, pH, adsorbent dosage and agitation rate on the adsorption of BR29 were studied. The uptake was very rapid during the first 30 minutes and slowed down as the contact time increased. The adsorption decreased as the initial dye concentration increased while it increased as the adsorbent dosage increased. The uptake of BR29 was highest at pH 8 and the percentage uptake increased as the agitation rate increased. The adsorption kinetics of BR29 onto BPP fitted well to the pseudo-second order kinetic model. Three different isotherm models, which include Langmuir, Freundlich and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) were used to analyze the equilibrium adsorption data of BR29. The adsorption isotherm of BR29 onto BPP was better described by the Freundlich isotherm model with the coefficient of determination (R-2) of 0.9956.