A PRELIMINARY STUDY ON REMOVAL OF DYE USING COIR PITH AND PARKIA SPECIOSA PODS AS BIOSORBENT

Abstract

The research study was done to determine biosorption process using cheap and abundant waste materials; coir pith & Parkia speciosa pods that were grounded prior to study. Effect of biosorption parameters of each biosorbents; contact time, initial colour concentration, biosorbent dosage, & pH were also studied and the best conditions were determined. For the duration of experiment all the other parameters were fixed at certain values and were changed with the best values afterwards. For coir pith, the best conditions are 90 minutes of contact time, 15 of mg/L initial colour concentration, 0.3 g of biosorbent dosage, & pH 11. For Parkia speciosa pods, the best values were obtained at 240 minutes contact time, 10 mg/L of initial colour concentration, 1.0 g of biosorbent dosage, & pH 11. Biosorption rate in terms of percentage of colour removal at the best conditions were higher in coir pith (98.64%) than Parkia speciosa pods (95.06%) although both materials seemed as suitable replacements for the current costly adsorbents. This information from this research could be used to improve the current process in removing Crystal Violet dye from wastewater which would specifically benefit the dye using parties such as textile factories and paper making factories in helping to reduce their pollution emission and help them meet the legislation standards of wastewater handling.