Wastewater treatment using multicomponent adsorption

Textile and leather industries use large amount of synthetic dyes for dyeing purpose. Adsorption is a very popular technology for dye removal from wastewater. Effluents from those industries contain large number of pollutants rather than a single component. During adsorption, presence of one component affects the adsorption of other components. This paper describes the isotherm study of multicomponent adsorption. In this study two dyes namely Methylene Blue (MB) and Metanil Yellow (MY) were used as adsorbate, these dyestuffs are known to be highly toxic and carcinogenic^[1]. Powdered Activated Carbon (PAC) was used as adsorbent. Finding the optimum operating condition is a vital job during multicomponent adsorption. Because, the condition is suitable for one component may not be suitable for the other components. Adsorption of cationic dye MB is favorable at higher pH whereas the anionic dye MY adsorption is favorable at lower pH. We found the optimum pH at which maximum dye removal is possible. We also compared the experimental data with the competitive Langmuir and Freundlich type isotherms. Effects of different operating parameters like adsorbent dose, initial dye concentration have been studied.