Removal of colour using banana stem adsorbent in textile wastewater

Abstract The potential use of banana stem adsorbent has been investigated via batch adsorption experiment. A series of batch experiment was carried out to determine the effect of various adsorbent dosage ( 0.2 – 1.4 g) and various contact time ( 15 – 120 minutes). Analysis on adsorption isotherm was done using Langmuir and Freundlich model. In addition to it, the behaviour and mechanism of adsorption was analysed using kinetic model, namely Pseudo-first order and pseudo second order kinetic. The result shows that more than 90% of colour was removed at optimum dosage of 1 g of banana stem adsorbent in 100 mL synthetic dye at optimum contact time of 90 minutes. Analysis of isotherm models showed that the adsorption of colour by banana stem adsorbent was fitted to Freundlich with coefficient of determination, r1 of 0.917. Adsorption kinetics of colour showed that Pseudo-second order fit better (r2 = 0.99) than Pseudo-first order (r2 = 0.94) kinetic model. From the result, it was indicated that the adsorption of colour occurred by multilayer on a heterogeneous surface of the banana stem through the chemical reaction process. As a conclusion, the use of banana stem adsorbent has good potential for colour removal in textile wastewater treatment because of low cost of the media. Thus, it is an alternative to overcome problems related to an excessive of colour in dye wastewater treatment plant.