Color is a visible pollutant and the presence of even minute amounts of coloring substance makes it undesirable due to its appearance. The removal of color from dye-bearing effluents is a major problem due to the difficulty in treating such wastewaters by conventional treatment methods. The most commonly used methods for color removal are biological oxidation and chemical precipitation. However, these processes are effective and economic only in the case where the solute concentrations are relatively high. Most industries use dyes and pigments to color their products. The presence of dyes in effluents is a major concern due to its adverse effect on various forms of life. The discharge of dyes in the environment is a matter of concern for both toxicological and esthetical reasons. It is evident from a literature survey of about 283 recently published papers that low-cost adsorbents have demonstrated outstanding removal capabilities for dye removal and the optimal equilibrium time of various dyes with different charcoal adsorbents from agricultural residues is between 4 and 5h. Maximum adsorptions of acidic dyes were obtained from the solutions with pH 8–10. The challenges and future prospects are discussed to provide a better framework for a safer and cleaner environment

This study explores adsorptive removal measures to shed light on current water treatment innovations for kinetic/isotherm models and their applications to antibiotic pollutants using a broad range of biomass-based adsorbents.

A new and novel adsorbent was obtained by impregnation of Moringa oleifera leaf in H₂SO₄ and NaOH, respectively. Prepared adsorbents were characterized using elemental analysis, FT-IR, SEM, TGA and EDX analyses, respectively. The effects of operational parameters, such as pH, moisture content, ash content, porosity and iodine number on these adsorbents were investigated and compared with those of commercial activated carbon (CAC). EDX results of acid activated M. oleifera leaf have the highest percentage of carbon by weight (69.40 %) and (76.11 %) by atom, respectively. Proximate analysis showed that the fixed carbon content of acid activated M. oleifera leaf (69.14 ± 0.01) was the highest of all adsorbents studied. Conclusively, the present investigation shows that acid activated M. oleifera leaf is a good alternative adsorbent that could be used in lieu of CAC for recovery of dyes and heavy metal from aqueous solutions and other separation techniques.

Activated carbon prepared from locust bean husk was modified using ortho-phosphoric acid (ALBP) and used to scavenge Rhodamine B (RhB) dye from aqueous solutions. Characteristic features of the adsorbents were investigated using SEM, FTIR, pHpzc and Boehm Titration (BT) techniques respectively. Batch studies were used to determine the influences of contact time, temperature and initial Rh-B dye concentrations. Adsorption data were analysed using four different isotherm models. The maximum monolayer adsorption capacity of 1111.1 mgg-1 was obtained for RhB dye adsorption. The kinetics of the adsorption process was studied using pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order Elovich and intraparticle diffusion models respectively. The experimental data was best described by pseudo-second-order kinetic model. Favourability of the process of adsorption was also established by the separator factor (RL) value ranging from 0 and 1, while the mean energy of adsorption (Ea) was 1.12 kJmol-1 suggesting that the removal of Rh-B dye from aqueous solution followed a physisorption process. For the thermodynamic investigations, the positive values of ΔS (280.956 Jmol-1K-1) indicates the affinity of adsorbent for the Rh-B dye uptake and increase randomness at the solid-solution interface during adsorption of Rh-B dye onto the surface of the active sites of ALBP. The negative value of ΔG (-31.892 to -26.355 kJmol-1) depicts the spontaneity and feasibility of the adsorption process. The cost analysis provides a simple proof that ALBP (42.52 USD per kg) is approximately six times cheaper than Commercial Activated Carbon, CAC (259.5 USD per kg). The present study therefore established the suitability of ALBP for effective removal of Rh-B dye from aqueous solutions.