Biosorption of textile dye reactive blue 221 by capia pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) seeds

Peppers are very important foodstuffs in the world for direct and indirect consumption, so they are extensively used. The seeds of these peppers are waste materials that are disposed of from houses and factories. To evaluate the performance of this biomass in the treatment of wastewaters, a study was conducted to remove a textile dye, reactive blue 221, which is commercially used in textile mills. Raw seed materials were used without any pre-treatment. The effects of contact time, initial concentration of dye, pH and dose of biosorbent were studied to determine the optimum conditions for this biomass on color removal from wastewaters. The optimum pH value for dye biosorption was found to be 2.0. At an initial dye concentration of 217 mg L^-1, treatment efficiency and biosorption capacity were 96.7% and 95.35 mg g^-1, respectively. A maximum biosorption capacity of 142.86 mg g^-1 was also obtained. Equilibrium biosorption of dye by capia seeds was well described by the Langmuir isotherm with a correlation coefficient above 99%. The biosorption process was also successfully explained with the pseudo-second order kinetic model. This biomass was found to be effective in terms of textile dye removal from aqueous solutions.