Dynamic behavior of a fixed-bed adsorption column for acid red removal using natural Algerian cactos

In this work, the ability of Natural Algerian Cactus (NAC) to adsorb Acid Red (AR) from aqueous solution was investigated in a fixed-bed column. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) was employed to examine the surface of the biosorbent, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) was utilized to analyze the chemical composition of NAC, and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis was conducted to determine the surface area of NAC. We examined the effects of flow rate and influent concentration of AR on the efficiency of the fixed bed. Additionally, we analyzed the sorption of AR using the Thomas and Yoon-Nelson models at various dye concentrations and flow rates to predict breakthrough curves and determine the characteristic parameters of the fixed bed sorption column. The applied models were found to describe the NAC column biosorption process. The obtained results show that the natural Algerian cactus is an efficient Acid Red biosorbent from its aqueous solutions. A sorption capacity of 39.51 mg/g was recorded for the highest concentration (100 mg/l) at a flow rate of 0.8 mL/min while for the highest flow rate (2 mL/min), the sorption capacity attained 30.27 mg/g for a concentration of 50 mg/l. However, the longest breakthrough time was noted for the lowest concentration and flow rate respectively (tb=21h and te=38h for 50mg/l and 0.8 mL/min).