Adsorption equilibrium and kinetic studies of crystal violet and naphthol green on torreya-grandis-skin-based activated carbon

A new type of activated carbon, torreya-grandis-skin-based activated carbon (TAC), has been used to remove the harmful dyes (cationic dye crystal violet (CV) and anionic dye naphthol green (NG)) from contaminated water via batch adsorption. The effects of solution pH, adsorption time and temperature were studied. The Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption models were used to describe the equilibrium isotherm and isotherm constant calculation. It was found that the maximum equilibrium adsorption capacities were 292mg/g and 545mg/g for CV and NG, respectively. Adsorption kinetics was verified by pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order and intra-particle diffusion kinetic models. Results indicated that the rate of dye adsorption followed pseudo-second-order kinetic model for the initial dye concentration range studied. Temperature-dependent adsorption behavior of CV and NG shows that the adsorption is spontaneous and endothermic, accompanying an entropy increase. This work indicates that TAC could be employed as a low-cost alternative for the removal of the textile dyes from effluents