T. SANTHI a*, S. MANONMANI b, T.SMITHA a

Kinetics And Isotherm Studies On Cationic Dyes Adsorption Onto Annona Squmosa Seed Activated Carbon T. SANTHI a*, S. MANONMANI b, T.SMITHA a a Department of Chemistry, Karpagam University, Coimbatore-641021, India, Phone no- 04222401661, Fax-04222611146 E-mail:ssnilasri@yahoo.co.in b Department of Chemistry, PSG College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore-641014, India Abstract The use of low - cost, locally available and eco-friendly adsorbents has been investigated as an ideal alternative to the current expensive methods of removing dyes from wastewater. This study investigates the potential use of activated carbon prepared from the Annona squmosa seed for the removal of methylene blue (MB), methyl red (MR) and malachite green (MG) dyes from simulated wastewater. Adsorption of MB, MR and MG dyes on the Annona squmosa seed showed highest values at around ph 7.0, and followed second order kinetic with intraparticle diffusion as one of the rate determining steps. The adsorption-equilibrium was represented with Langmuir, Freundlich, Dubinin-Radushekevich and Tempkin isotherms. Activated carbon developed from the Annona squmosa seed can be an attractive option for dyes removal from diluted industrial effluents. Keywords: Annona squmosa; Adsorption; Percentage dye removal; Kinetics; Activated carbon 1. Introduction Synthetic dyes have been extensively excreted in the wastewater from different industries, particularly from textile, paper, rubber, plastic, leather, cosmetic, food, and drug industries which used dyes to color their products. It is reported that over 100000 commercially available dyes exist and the global annual production of synthetic dyes is more than 7 10 5 metric tones 1. Dye wastewater discharge into environmental water bodies deteriorates the water quality, and may cause a significant impact on human health due to toxic, carcinogenic, mutagenic or teratogenic effects of some dyes or their metabolites 2. Some biological and physical/chemical methods have been employed for dye wastewater treatment. In all these methods, the sorption has been found to be economical and effective dye wastewater treatment technology as it can remove various dyes with lower treatment cost. Though the removal of dyes through activated carbon sorption is quite effective, the large-scale application of activated carbon is restricted due to its higher cost and regenerating problems. At present, there is a growing interest in using other low cost sorbents for dye removal. Many lignocellulosic materials, including coir pith 3, sunflower stalks 4 corncob and barley husk 5, rice husk 6, kohlrabi peel 7 have been used as low cost dye sorbents. Annona squmosa is a commonly available hedge plant, which is used in fencing property perimeter in Kenerapallam, Palaghat Dt, Kerala. Foliage of the plant is thick and fruits are in abundance during the session. The inner core of the ripe fruit is delicious and of nutritive value and commonly consume. After consumption, the seeds are discarded has they are nonedeble. Since the Annona squmosa seed is available free of cost, only the carbonization of its involved for the waste water treatment. Therefore the main objective of this study was to evaluate the possibility of using dried Annona squmosa seed to develop a new low cost activated carbon and ISSN: 0975-5462 287

study its application to remove dyes from simulated wastewater. Granulized Annona squmosa seed was previously investigated to adsorb cationic dyes 8. 2. Materials and methods 2.1. Biomass Annona squmosa seed was collected from a farm house in Kenerapallam and washed with tap water followed by washing with distilled water. After this, the clean Annona squmosa seed biomass was oven dried at 110±2 0 C for 48 h, and the dried Annona squmosa seed was milled and sieved to select particles 125 to 250 µm for use. 2.2. Preparation of activated carbon from the Annona squmosa seed (CAS) The dried Annona squmosa biomass 1.0 kg was added in small portion to 1000 ml of 98 % H 2 SO 4 during 12 hours and the resulting reaction mixture was kept overnight at room temperature, the reaction mixture was poured into cold water (3 L) and filtered. The resulting material was washed thoroughly with 3 L distilled water and then soaked in two percent NaHCO 3 solution overnight to remove any remaining acid. The obtained carbon was then washed with distilled water until ph of the activated carbon reached 7, dried in an oven at 110±2 0 C for 24 h in the absence of oxygen and sieved to the particle sizes 125 to 250 µm and kept in a glass bottle until used. 2.3. Preparation of synthetic solutions A stock solution of 500 mg L -1 was prepared by dissolving the appropriate amount of MB, MR and MG (obtained from s.d.fine Chemicals, Mumbai, India) in 100 ml and made to 1000 ml with distilled water. Different concentrations ranged between 25 and 200 mg L -1 of dyes were prepared from the stock solution. All the chemicals used throughout this study were of analytical-grade reagents. Double-distilled water was used for preparing all of the solutions and reagents. The initial ph was adjusted with 0.1 M HCl or 0.1 M NaOH. All the adsorption experiments were carried out at room temperature (27 ±2 0 C). 2.4. Batch adsorption studies 2.4.1. Effect of ph on Dyes adsorption The effect of ph on the equilibrium uptake of dyes were investigated by employing a initial concentration of dyes (100mg/L) and 0.2 g/50 ml of CAS. The initial ph values were adjusted with 0.1 M HCl or 0.1 M NaOH to form a series of ph from 2 to 10. The suspensions were shaken at room temperature (27 ±2 0 C) using agitation speed (150 rpm), the minimum contact time required to reach the equilibrium (100 min) and the amount of dyes adsorbed determined. 2.4.2. Kinetics studies Adsorption studies were conducted in 250-mL shaking flasks at a solution ph of 7.0. CAS (0.2g/50mL) was thoroughly mixed individually with 50mL of dyes solution (50,100,150 and 200 mg/l) and the suspensions were shaken at room temperature. Samples of 1.0 ml were collected from the duplicate flasks at required time intervals viz.10, 20,30,40,50,60,70,80,90 and100 min and were centrifuged for 5 min. The clear solutions were analyzed for residual dyes concentration in the solutions. 2.4.3. Adsorption isotherm Batch adsorption experiments were carried out in a rotary shaker at 150 rpm using 250ml-shaking flasks at room temperature for 100 min. The CAS (0.2 and 0.6 g) was thoroughly mixed with 50 ml of dyes solutions. The isotherm studies were performed by varying the initial dyes concentrations from 25 to 200 mg/l at ph 7.0, which was adjusted using 0.1 M HCl or 0.1 M NaOH before addition of CAS and maintained throughout the experiment. After shaking the flasks for 100 min, the reaction mixture was analyzed for the residual dyes concentration. The concentration of MB, MR and MG in solution was measured by using direct UV-vis spectrophotometric method using a Systronic Spectrophotometer-104. All the experiments were duplicated and only the mean values are reported. The maximum deviation observed was less than ±4%. Adsorption of dyes from simulated wastewater was studied using 0.2g / 50 ml of CAS and dyes concentrations 100 mg /L at initial ph 7.0. The amount of dye adsorbed at equilibrium onto carbon, q e (mg/g), was calculated by the following mass balance relationship: q e = (C 0 C e ) V/W (1) where C 0 and Ce (mg/l) are the initial and equilibrium liquid phase concentration of dyes, respectively, V the volume of the solution(l), and W is the weight of the CAS used(g). ISSN: 0975-5462 288

3. Results and discussion 3.1. Effect of system ph on MB, MR and MG Uptake The ph of the system exerts profound influence on the adsorptive uptake of adsorbate molecules presumably due to its influence on the surface properties of the adsorbent and ionization/dissociation of the adsorbate molecule. (Fig. 1) shows the variations in the removal of dyes from wastewater at different system ph. From the figure, it is evident that the maximum removal of MB, MR and MG color is observed at ph 7. Similar trend of ph effect was observed for the adsorption of methylene blue on activated carbon prepared from ricinus communis 9, methyl red on activated carbon prepared from cucumis sativa 10 and malachite green on activated carbon prepared from ricinus communis 11. Which may be attributed to the hydrophobic nature of the developed carbon which led to absorb hydrogen ions (H + ) onto the surface of the carbon when immersed in water and made it positively charged. Low ph value (1.0 to 3.0) leads to an increase in H + ion concentration in the system and the surface of the activated carbon acquires positive charge by absorbing H + ions. On the other hand, increase of the ph value (7) led to increase of the number of negatively charged sites. As the CAS surface is negatively charged at high ph, a significantly strong electrostatic attraction appears between the negatively charged carbon surface and cationic dye molecule leading to maximum adsorption of dyes 12 from waste water. The lowest adsorption occurred at ph 2.0 and the highest adsorption occurred at ph 6.0. Adsorbents surface would be positively charged up to ph < 4, and heterogeneous in the ph range 4 6. Thereafter, it should be negatively charged. Moreover, the increasing in the adsorption of dyes with increasing of ph value is also due to the attraction between cationic dye and excess OH ions in the solution. The ph at the zero point of charge (ph zpc) of the CAS is reported to be 4.1. 100 % Dye adsorbed 80 60 40 20 0 0 5 10 MB MR MG Initial ph Fig. 1. Effect of system ph on adsorption of MB, MR and MG (100 mg L 1 ) onto CAS (0.2 g /50mL) at room temperature (27 ± 2 C), agitation speed 150 rpm for the minimum contact time required to reach the equilibrium (100 min). 3.2. Isotherm data analysis The parameters obtained from the different models provide important information on the adsorption mechanisms and the surface properties and affinities of the adsorbent. The most widely accepted surface adsorption models for single-solute systems are the Langmuir and Freundlich models. The correlation with the amount of adsorption and the liquid-phase concentration was tested with the Langmuir, Freundlich, Tempkin and Dubinin Radushkevich (D R) isotherm equations. Linear regression is frequently used to determine the best-fitting isotherm, and the applicability of isotherm equations is compared by judging the correlation coefficients. 3.2.1. Langmuir isotherm The theoretical Langmuir isotherm is valid for adsorption of a solute from a liquid solution as monolayer adsorption on a surface containing a finite number of identical sites. Langmuir isotherm model assumes uniform energies of adsorption onto the surface without transmigration of adsorbate in the plane of the surface 13. Therefore, the Langmuir isotherm model was chosen for estimation of the maximum adsorption capacity corresponding to complete monolayer coverage on the adsorbent surface. The Langmuir non-linear equation is commonly expressed as followed: (2) ISSN: 0975-5462 289

In Eq. (2), C e and q e are as defined before in Eq.(1), Q m is a constant and reflect a complete monolayer (mg g 1 ); K a is adsorption equilibrium constant (L mg 1 ) that is related to the apparent energy of sorption. The Langmuir isotherm Eq. (2) can be linearized into the following form. Langmuir-1 (3) A plot of C e /q e versus C e should indicate a straight line of slope 1/Q m and an intercept of 1/(K a Q m ). The results obtained from the Langmuir model for the removal of dyes onto CAS are shown in Table 1. The correlation coefficients reported in Table 1 showed strong positive evidence on the adsorption of dyes onto CAS follows the Langmuir isotherm. The applicability of the linear form of Langmuir model to CAS was proved by the high correlation coefficients R 2 > 0.97. This suggests that the Langmuir isotherm provides a good model of the sorption system. The maximum monolayer capacity Q m obtained from the Langmuir is 8.525 mg g 1 for MB, 40.486 mg g 1 for MR and 25.91 mg g 1 for MG. Table 1. Comparison of the coefficients isotherm parameters for MB, MR and MG adsorption onto CAS Isotherm model CAS concentrations (g /50mL) 0.2 (g /50mL) Langmuir (MB) (MR) (MG) Q m (mg g 1 ) 8.525 40.486 25.91 K a (L mg 1 ) 0.0354 0.0248 0.1545 R 2 0.9701 0.9491 0.9602 Freundlich 1/n 0.3695 0.5931 0.4916 K F (mg g 1 ) 1.1863 2.0583 3.7879 R 2 0.8759 0.9396 0.9039 Tempkin α (L g 1 ) 0.9391 0.2032 0.5537 β (mg L 1 ) 1.7551 8.0501 7.9805 b 1421.12 309.83 312.54 R 2 0.992 0.9386 0.9667 Dubinin Radushkevich Q m (mg g 1 ) 6.7853 25.134 25.287 K ( 10-3 mol 2 kj 2 ) 0.03 0.04 0.007 E (kj mol 1 ) 0.1291 0.1118 0.2673 R 2 0.9214 0.9203 0.8801 3.2.2. The Freundlich isotherm The Freundlich isotherm model is the earliest known equation describing the adsorption process. It is an empirical equation and can be used for non-ideal sorption that involves heterogeneous adsorption. The Freundlich isotherm can be derived assuming a logarithmic decrease in the enthalpy of adsorption with the increase in the fraction of occupied sites and is commonly given by the following non-linear equation: (4) where K F is a constant for the system, related to the bonding energy. K F can be defined as the adsorption or distribution coefficient and represents the quantity of dye adsorbed onto adsorbent for unit equilibrium concentration. 1/n is indicating the adsorption intensity of dye onto the adsorbent or surface heterogeneity, becoming more heterogeneous as its value gets closer to zero. A value for 1/n below 1 indicates a normal Langmuir isotherm while 1/n above 1 is indicative of cooperative adsorption. Eq. (4) can be linearized in the logarithmic form (Eq.(5)) and the Freundlich constants can be determined: (5) The applicability of the Freundlich adsorption isotherm was also analyzed, using the same set of experimental data, by plotting log(q e ) versus log(c e ). The data obtained from linear Freundlich isotherm plot for the ISSN: 0975-5462 290

adsorption of the MB, MR and MG onto CAS is presented in Table 1. The correlation coefficients (>0.88) showed that the Freundlich model is comparable to the Langmuir model. The 1/n is lower than 1.0, indicating that MB, MR and MG is favorably adsorbed by CAS. 3.2.3. The Tempkin isotherm Tempkin adsorption isotherm model was used to evaluate the adsorption potentials of the CAS for MB, MR and MG. The derivation of the Tempkin isotherm assumes that the fall in the heat of adsorption is linear rather than logarithmic, as implied in the Freundlich equation. The Tempkin isotherm has commonly been applied in the following form (6) The Tempkin isotherm Eq. (6) can be simplified to the following equation: q e =β ln α+β ln C e (7) where β = (RT)/b, T is the absolute temperature in Kelvin and R is the universal gas constant, 8.314 J (mol K) 1. The constant b is related to the heat of adsorption 14. The adsorption data were analyzed according to the linear form of the Tempkin isotherm equation (7). Examination of the data shows that the Tempkin isotherm fitted well the dyes adsorption data for CAS. The linear isotherm constants and coefficients of determination are presented in Table 1. The correlation coefficients R 2 obtained from Tempkin model were comparable to that obtained for Langmuir and Freundlich equations, which explain the applicability of Tempkin model to the adsorption of MB, MR and MG onto CAS. 3.2.4. The Dubinin Radushkevich (D R) isotherm The D R model was also applied to estimate the porosity apparent free energy and the characteristics of adsorption. The D R isotherm dose not assumes a homogeneous surface or constant adsorption potential. The D R model has commonly been applied in the following Eq. (8) and its linear form can be shown in Eq. (9): q e =Q m exp( Kε 2 ) (8) ln q e =ln Q m Kε 2 (9) where K is a constant related to the adsorption energy, Q m the theoretical saturation capacity, potential, calculated from Eq. (10). the Polanyi (10) The slope of the plot of ln q e versus 2 gives K (mol 2 (kj 2 ) 1 ) and the intercept yields the adsorption capacity, Q m (mg g 1 ). The mean free energy of adsorption (E), defined as the free energy change when one mole of ion is transferred from infinity in solution to the surface of the solid, was calculated from the K value using the following relation 15 : (11) The calculated value of D R parameters is given in Table 1. The values of E calculated using Eq. (11) is below 1 kj mol 1, which indicating that the physico-sorption process plays the significant role in the adsorption of MB, MR and MG onto CAS. 3.3. Kinetic models applied to the adsorption of MB, MR and MG onto CAS Several steps can be used to examine the controlling mechanism of adsorption process such as chemical reaction, diffusion control and mass transfer; kinetic models are used to test experimental data from the adsorption of MB, MR and MG onto CAS. The kinetics of dyes adsorption onto CAS is required for selecting optimum operating conditions for the full-scale batch process. The kinetic parameters, which are helpful for the prediction of adsorption rate, give important information for designing and modeling the adsorption processes. Thus, the kinetics of MB, MR and MG adsorption onto CAS were analyzed using pseudo-first-order 16, pseudosecond-order 17 and intraparticle diffusion 18 kinetic models. The conformity between experimental data and the model-predicted values was expressed by the correlation coefficients (R 2, values close or equal to 1). The relatively higher value is the more applicable model to the kinetics of dye adsorption onto CAS. ISSN: 0975-5462 291

3.3.1. Pseudo-first-order equation The adsorption kinetic data were described by the Lagergren pseudo-first-order model 16, which is the earliest known equation describing the adsorption rate based on the adsorption capacity. The differential equation is generally expresses a follows: (12) where q e and q t are the adsorption capacity at equilibrium and at time t, respectively (mg g 1 ), k 1 is the rate constant of pseudo-first-order adsorption (L min 1 ). Integrating Eq. (12) for the boundary conditions t = 0 t and q t = 0 q t gives (13) Eq. (13) can be rearranged to obtain the following linear form: (14) In order to obtain the rate constants, the values of log(q e q t ) were linearly correlated with t by plot of log(q e q t ) versus t to give a linear relationship from which k 1 and predicted q e can be determined from the slope and intercept of the plot, respectively (Fig.2). The variation in rate should be proportional to the first power of concentration for strict surface adsorption. However, the relationship between initial solute concentration and rate of adsorption will not be linear when pore diffusion limits the adsorption process. Fig.1 shows that the pseudo-first-order equation fits well for the first 50 min and thereafter the data deviate from theory. Thus, the model represents the initial stages where rapid adsorption occurs well but cannot be applied for the entire adsorption process. Furthermore, the correlation coefficient R 2 are relatively low for most adsorption data (Table 2). This shows that the adsorption of MB, MR and MG onto CAS cannot be applied and the reaction mechanism is not a first-order reaction. log (qe-qt) 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0-0.2-0.4-0.6 R 2 = 0.9109 R 2 = 0.9194 R 2 = 0.8755 0 50 100 Time(min) MB MR MG Linear (MB) Linear (MR) Linear (MG) Fig. 2. Pseudo-first-order kinetics for MB, MR and MG (100 mg L 1 ) adsorption onto CAS. Conditions: adsorbent dosage 0.2 g/50 ml, ph 7.0, temperature 27 ± 2 C. ISSN: 0975-5462 292

Table 2. Comparison of the first- and second-order adsorption rate constants and calculated and experimental q e values for different initial MB, MR and MG and CAS (0.2g /50mL) Parameter First-order kinetic model Second-order kinetic model q e k 1 q e R 2 k 2 q e h R 2 perimental) (calculated) (calculated) MB (mg L 1 ) 50 2.9836 0.0313 3.948 0.8569 0.0076 4.822 0.18 0.9674 100 6.013 0.028 7.53 0.919 0.003 9.9502 0.34 0.957 150 5.054 0.026 9.29 0.842 0.0012 12.09 2.19 0.8457 200 7.213 0.024 10.67 0.866 0.0014 14.663 0.29 0.8968 MR (mg L 1 ) 50 7.958 0.0325 4.99 0.8524 0.011 9.7466 1.045 0.992 100 14.97 0.0295 8.64 0.911 0.0057 18.38 1.92 0.991 150 21.85 0.0316 12.688 0.924 0.0041 26.67 2.89 0.993 200 25.80 0.0237 11.21 0.9014 0.0043 30.58 3.98 0.9931 MG (mg L 1 ) 50 2.9836 0.0253 4.3321 0.9107 0.011 10.526 1.22 0.9934 100 6.012 0.0239 6.849 0.875 0.0074 21.739 3..487 0.9952 150 5.0539 0.0235 10.65 0.9226 0.0022 57.47 7.41 0.9941 200 7.213 0.0269 15.32 0.9676 0.0024 25.38 1.53 0.9855 k 1 (min 1 ), k 2 (g (mg min) 1 ), q e (mg g 1 ), h (mg (g min) 1 ). 3.3.2. Pseudo-second-order equation The adsorption kinetic may be described by the pseudo-second-order model 17. The differential equation is generally given as follows: (15) where k 2 (g (mg min) 1 ) is the second-order rate constant of adsorption. Integrating Eq. (15) for the boundary conditions q t = 0 q t at t = 0 t is simplified as can be rearranged and linearized to obtain: (16) The second-order rate constants were used to calculate the initial sorption rate, given by the following equation: (17) If the second-order kinetics is applicable, then the plot of t/q t versus t should show a linear relationship. Values of k 2 and equilibrium adsorption capacity q e were calculated from the intercept and slope of the plots of t/q t versus t (Fig 3). The linear plots of t/q t versus t show good agreement between experimental and calculated q e values at 100mg/L initial MB, MR and MG and 0.2 mg/50 ml adsorbent concentrations (Table 2). The correlation coefficients for the second-order kinetic model are greater than 0.96 which led to believe that the pseudo-second-order kinetic model provided good correlation for the bioadsorption of MB, MR and MG onto CAS. ISSN: 0975-5462 293

t/qt (min /( mg/g)) 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 R 2 = 0.9671 R 2 = 0.992 R 2 = 0.9934 0 50 100 150 Time (min) MB MR MG Linear (MB) Linear (MR) Linear (MG) Fig. 3. Pseudo-second-order kinetics for MB, MR and MG (100 mg L 1 ) adsorption onto CAS. Conditions: adsorbent dosage 0.2 g/50 ml, ph 7.0, temperature 27 ± 2 C. The values of initial sorption (h) that represents the rate of initial adsorption, is increased with increasing dye concentrations onto CAS dose 0.2 g ml 1 (Table 2). 3.3.3. The intraparticle diffusion model The adsorbate species are most probably transported from the bulk of the solution into the solid phase through intraparticle diffusion/transport process, which is often the rate-limiting step in many adsorption processes, especially in a rapidly stirred batch reactor. Since the dyes are probably transported from its aqueous solution to the CAS by intraparticle diffusion, so the intraparticle diffusion is another kinetic model should be used to study the rate of dye adsorption onto CAS. The possibility of intraparticular diffusion was explored by using the intraparticle diffusion model, which is commonly expressed by the following equation: q t =K dif t 1/2 +C (20) where C (mg g 1 ) is the intercept and K dif is the intraparticle diffusion rate constant (in mg g 1 min 1/2 ). The values of q t were found to be linearly correlated with values of t 1/2 and the rate constant K dif directly evaluated from the slope of the regression line (Table 3). The values of intercept C (Table 3) provide information about the thickness of the boundary layer, the resistance to the external mass transfer increase as the intercept increase. The constant C was increased with increasing the dye concentration, which indicating the increase of the thickness of the boundary layer and decrease of the chance of the external mass transfer and hence increase of the chance of internal mass transfer. The R 2 values given in Table 3 are close to unity indicating the application of this model. This may confirm that the rate-limiting step is the intraparticle diffusion process. The linearity of the plots demonstrated that intraparticle diffusion played a significant role in the uptake of the adsorbate by adsorbent. Table 3. The parameters obtained from intraparticle diffusion model using different initial dye concentrations. Parameter Intraparticle diffusion K dif C R 2 MB (mg L 1 ) 50 0.3266 0.6598 0.9883 100 0.6752 1.216 0.9792 150 0.8337 0.8689 0.9651 200 0.9538 0.4373 0.935 MR (mg L 1 ) 50 0.3892 5.1933 0.9738 100 0.7322 9.7681 0.9567 150 1.0561 14.347 0.9655 200 1.043 18.395 0.9711 MG (mg L 1 ) 50 0.4068 5.821 0.9838 100 0.629 14.438 0.9635 150 2.085 33.556 0.9832 200 1.4562 7.88 0.991 ISSN: 0975-5462 294

4. Conclusion T.Santhi et al. / International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology The results of this investigation show that activated carbon developed from Annona squmosa seed has a suitable adsorption capacity for the removal of MB, MR and MG from aqueous solutions. The experimental results were fitted well with Langmuir, Freundlich, Tempkin and Dubinin Radushkevich isotherm models. The data indicate that the adsorption kinetics follow the pseudo-second-order rate with intraparticle diffusion as one of the rate determining steps. The present study concludes that the CAS could be employed as low-cost adsorbents as alternatives to commercial activated carbon for the removal of color and dyes from wastewater. References [1] C. I. J. R. Lloyd and J. T Guthrie, The removal of colour from textile wastewater using whole bacterial cells: a review, Dyes Pigments 58:179-196(2003). [2] M. S. Otterburn, and D. A. Aga, Fullers earth and fired clay as adsorbent for dye stuffs, equilibrium and rate constants, Water Air Soil Pollut 24 : 307-322(1985). [3] C. Namasivayam and K. Kadirvelu, Coirpith, an agricultural waste by-product for the treatment of dyeing wastewater, Bioresour. Technol 48 :79-81(1994). [4] G.Sun and X. Xu, Sunflower stalks as adsorbents for color removal from textile wastewater, Ind. Eng. Chem. Res 36:808-812(1997). [5] B. Chandran and P. Nigam, Removal of dyes from an artificial textile dye effluent by two agricultural waste residues, corncob and barley husk, Environ. Int 28: 29-33(2002). [6] 6. V. Vadivelan and K.V. Kumar, Equilibrium, kinetics, mechanism, and process design for the sorption of methylene blue onto rice husk, J.Colloid Interf. Sci 286:90-100(2005). [7] R. X. Zhang, H. Liu, Y. Sun and B. Liu, Uptake of cationic dyes from aqueous solution by biosorption onto granular kohlrabi peel, Bioresour. Technol 98:1319-1323(2007). [8] T.Santhi and S. Manonmani,Uptake of cationic dyes from aqueous solution by bioadsorption using granulized Annona squmosa seed, E-J. Chemistry 6 (4): 1260 1266 (2009). [9] T.Santhi and S. Manonmani, Removal of methylene blue from aqueous solution by bioadsorption onto Recinus communis epicarp activated carbon, Chemical Engineering research bulletion 13 :1 5 (2009). [10] T.Santhi. S. Manonmani, T. Smitha, D. Sugirtha and K. Mahalakshmi, Uptake of cationic dyes from aqueous solution by bioadsorption onto granular cucumis sativa, J. Applied.Sci.in Environ. Sanit 4:29 35(2009). [11] T.Santhi, S. Manonmani and T.Smitha, Removal of malachite green from aqueous solution by activated carbon prepared from the epicarp of Ricinus communis, J. Hazard. Mater article in press 2010. [12] EI Nem. Ola Abdelwahab, Amany EI-Sikaily and Azza Khaled, Removal of direct blue-86 from from aqueous solution by new activated carbon developed from orange peel, J. Hazard. Mater 161(1) :102 110(2009). [13] M. M. Alkan and Y. Onganer, Adsorption of methylene blue from aqueous solution onto perlite, Water Air Soil Pollut 120: 229 249(2000). [14] G.Akkaya and A. Ozer,Adsorption of acid red 274 (AR 274) on Dicranella varia: determination of equilibrium and kinetic model parameters, Process Biochem 40 (11) :3559 3568(2005). [15] S. Kundu and A.K. Gupta, Investigation on the adsorption efficiency of iron oxide coated cement (IOCC) towards As(V) kinetics, equilibrium and thermodynamic studies, Colloid Surf. A: Physicochem. Eng. Aspects 273 : 121 128(2006). [16] S. Zur theorie dersogenannten adsorption geloster stoffe kungliga svenska vetenskapsakademiens, Handlingar 24:1 39(1898). [17] Y.S. G. McKay, D.A.J. Wase and C.F. Foster, Study of the sorption of divalent metal ions on to peat, Adsorp. Sci. Technol 18:639 650 (2000). [18] K. N. Balasubramanian and T.V. Ramakrishan, Studies on chromium removal by rice husk carbon, Indian J. Environ. Health 30: 376 387 (1988). ISSN: 0975-5462 295