Removal of Disperse Red dye by bamboo-based activated carbon: optimisation, kinetics and equilibrium.

This research involved the use of response surface methodology (RSM) to investigate the adsorption of Disperse Red 167 dye onto the bamboo-based activated carbon activated with H3PO4 (PBAC) in a batch process. F400, a commercially available activated carbon, was used in parallel for comparison. Analysis of variance showed that input variables such as the contact time, temperature, adsorbent dosage and the interaction between the temperature and the contact time had a significant effect on the dye removal for both adsorbents. RSM results show that the optimal contact time, temperature, initial dye concentration and adsorbent dosage for both adsorbents were found to be 15.4 h, 50 °C, 50.0 mg L(-1) and 12.0 g L(-1), respectively. Under these optimal conditions, the removal efficiencies reached 90.23% and 92.13% for PBAC and F400, respectively, with a desirability of 0.937. The validation of the experimental results confirmed the prediction of the models derived from RSM. The adsorption followed a nonlinear pseudo-first-order model and agreed well with the Freundlich and Temkin isotherm as judged by the levels of the AICc and the Akaike weight. Furthermore, the thermodynamics analysis indicated that, for both adsorbents, the adsorption was a physical process that was spontaneous, entropy-increasing and endothermic.