Abstract—Dye wastewater produced in textile industries is a
warning issue that threatens the environment due to discharge
into the waterway. This study reviewed the adsorption of
Methylene Blue (MB), as a toxic dye, onto diatomite adsorbent.
A series of chemical modifications were examined by
impregnating diatomite into various acidic and basic solutions
to obtain the most active sample with the highest capacity. Both
raw diatomite (RD) and modified diatomite (MD) were
analyzed under different experimental conditions, such as PH,
contact time, the dose of adsorbent to attain the optimum
quantities of each in which adsorption capacity and removal
percentage were in their highest amount. FESEM analysis
indicated the surface characterization and the morphology of
both adsorbents. The results of batch experiments showed that
the equilibration removal capacities of MB under the optimum
condition were 72 mg/g for RD and 127 mg/g for MD. Overall
results suggested that due to the low-cost, naturally available,
simple treatment methods and materials, and sustainability, the
modified adsorbent has the potential for dye removal in the
practical process.
Index Terms—Adsorption, chemical modification, diatomite,
methylene blue, textile wastewater.
The authors are with the Department of Chemical Engineering, Qatar
University, Qatar (e-mail: pe1904870@qu.edu.qa, akumar@qu.edu.qa).
Cite: Parisa Ebrahimi and Anand Kumar, "Diatomite Chemical Activation for Effective Adsorption of Methylene Blue Dye from Model Textile Wastewater," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 23-28, 2021.
Copyright © 2021 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).