Experimental and chemometric analysis of bioremediation of remazol dyes using biochar derived from green seaweeds

The present study investigates the bioremediation of Remazol brilliant blue R (RBBR), Remazol brilliant orange 3R (RBO3R), Remazol brilliant violet 5R (RBV5R) and Remazol Black B (RBB) using biochar derived from three marine seaweeds such as Ulva lactuca, Ulva reticulata and Caulerpa scalpelliformis. The removal efficiency of different biochars was studied by varying the operating parameters such as biochar dosage, pH, temperature and initial concentration in batch experiments. The optimum values were attained at 2 g/L biochar dosage, 1.75 pH, 30 degrees C temperature and 0.05 mmol/L initial concentrations. Among the different green seaweeds, U. lactuca derived biochar loaded with RBO3R showed that maximum removal efficiency in all the batch studies. The removal efficiency of biochar was in the order of Ulzia lactuca > Ulm reticulate > Caulerpa scalpelliformis and for dyes it was in the order of RBO3R followed by RBBR, RBV5R and RBB. FT-IR and SEM images were used to study the binding matrix of the derived biochar. The result indicated that the derived biochar is suitable for the adsorption process since a lot of binding pores were seen over the surface of the biochar. In this work, the chemometric analysis was also carried out to classify and compare the dye removal capability of different green seaweeds derived biochar.