Dye adsorption onto char from bamboo

Experiments have been carried out to prepare char from waste bamboo scaffolding for wastewater treatment. Carbonisation parameters such as temperature, holding time, heating rate and particle size were investigated. When the material was heated to 1173K for 2 h, surface area (SBET-N2) and total pore volume (V-total) were 327 m(2)/g and 0.185 cm(3)/g, respectively. Particle size and heating rate appear less influential to the yield and textural characteristics of the resultant chars. Bamboo char obtained in this study did not show very high adsorption capacities for two acid dyes (Acid Blue 25 and Acid Yellow 117) but exhibited significant uptake of Methylene Blue. The equilibrium data were modelled by three different isotherms, namely, Langmuir, Freundlich and Redlich-Peterson model. Comparing the predicted data using optimised parameters from each model based on the SSE error function, the Redlich-Peterson isotherm appears the 'best' model to correlate experimental data. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.