REMOVAL OF METHYLENE BLUE FROM TEXTILE WASTE WATER USING KAOLIN AND ZEOLITE X SYNTHESIZED FROM KAOLIN

<strong>Abstract</strong>: Textile wastewater contains different dyes which are harmful to the environment. Therefore, removal of methylene blue from textile wastewater has to be carried out before being discharged into the environment. The removal of methylene blue from textile wastewater using adsorption process provides an attractive alternative treatment. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the suitability of using zeolite-x and kaolin as effective adsorbents for removal of methylene blue from the textile wastewater. The prepared zeolite-x and kaolin were characterized by Fourier Transform Infrared and X-ray diffraction techniques. A series of batch adsorption experiments were carried out to assess parameters that influence the adsorption process. The parameters were pH, contact time, adsorbent dose and initial dye concentration. The Performance of zeolite-x adsorbent is best at the optimum pH 4 with removal efficiency of 97.77% and kaolin adsorbent performed well at the optimum pH 6 with removal efficiency of 86.86%. The optimum contact time was obtained at 60 and 80 minutes for zeolite–x and kaolin respectively. While optimum adsorbent dosage was obtained at 0.4 and 0.6 grams with removal efficiency of 97.12% and 87.75% for the zeolite-x and kaolin adsorption experiment respectively. As the initial concentration increases, removal efficiency of both adsorbents decreases. So, the highest removal efficiency 97.77% and 86.64% were obtained in the lowest optimum concentration of 1 mg/L for zeolite-x and kaolin experiments respectively. The reaction mechanism involved in the methylene blue adsorption was analyzed based on adsorption isotherm and adsorption kinetics studies. The Adsorption isotherms results have well fitted to Freundlich isotherm than Langmuir isotherm. The adsorption kinetics results were best fitted the pseudo second order model with good correlation than pseudo-first model. The result shows that the kaolin and zeolite-x sample are effective in the removal of methylene blue from textile wastewater but zeolite-x has high removal efficiency than kaolin at the same operating conditions.