Removal of basic dye (methylene blue) from aqueous solution by adsorption using Musa paradisica: a agricultural waste

Adsorbent prepared from Musa paradisica leaves--a low cost bioadsorbent was successfuly used to remove methylene blue from an aqueous solution in batch study. The effect of contact time, adsorbent dosage, pH of solution, initial dye concentration, particle size of adsorbent and kinetics of adsorption was studied. It has been observed that the optimum pH is 8 and adsorbent dosage required is 4 g/L for 97% removal of methylene blue (100 mg/L). The removal of methylene blue increases with increasing contact time and becomes constant after 30 minutes. The adsorbent dosage was increased from 1 g/L to 24 g/L and percentage removal increases continuously. The adsorption follows Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models. The comparison was also done with pseudo first order, pseudo second order, and Elovich kinetic models, respectively.