Organobentonite as efficient textile dye sorbent

Abstract

Domestic bentonite clay was modified using cationic surfactant - hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (HDTMA-bromide) in order to obtain more efficient sorbent. Removal of Acid Orange 10 from aqueous solution at different dye concentrations, adsorbent doses, and pH was studied. These studies were carried out under unaltered pH value in order to prove that adjusting pH as an additional operation in wastewater treatment is not entirely necessary. The results obtained confirmed the adsorption capacity is significant even for unaltered pH. The adsorption isotherm data were well fitted with both the Freundlich and Langmuir model and the latter was shown as more appropriate. Dynamical data were well represented with the pseudo second-order kinetic model. The results indicate that HDTMA-bentonite could be employed as low-cost sorbent in textile dye wastewater treatment.