Water Science & Technology Vol 65 No 9 pp 1632–1638 © IWA Publishing 2012 doi:10.2166/wst.2012.057

Adsorptive performance of penta-bismuth hepta-oxide nitrate, Bi₅O₇NO₃, for removal of methyl orange dye

Abdul Halim Abdullah, Eshraq Ahmed Abdullah, Zulkarnain Zainal, Mohd Zobir Hussein and Tan Kar Ban

The adsorption of methyl orange dye from aqueous solution onto penta-bismuth hepta-oxide nitrate, Bi₅O₇NO₃, synthesized by precipitation method, was studied in a batch adsorption system. The effects of operation parameters such as adsorbent dose, initial dye concentration, pH and temperature were investigated. The adsorption equilibrium and mechanism of adsorption was evaluated by Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm and different kinetic models, respectively. The results indicate that adsorption is highly dependent on all operation parameters. At optimum conditions, the adsorption capacity was found to be 18.9 mg/g. The adsorption data fits well with the Langmuir isotherm model indicating monolayer coverage of adsorbate molecules on the surface of Bi₅O₇NO₃. The kinetic studies show that the adsorption process is a second-order kinetic reaction. Although intra-particle diffusion limits the rate of adsorption, the multi-linearity plot of intra-particle model shows the importance of both film and intra-particle diffusion as the rate-limiting steps of the dye removal. Thermodynamic parameters show that the adsorption process is endothermic, spontaneous and favourable at high temperature.

Keywords: adsorbent; adsorption; azo dye; equilibrium isotherm; kinetic

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