Experimental Investigation on Adsorption of Amido Black 10B Dye onto Zeolite Synthesized from Fly Ash

This work presents experimental studies on adsorptive removal of Amido black 10B dye using a low-cost zeolite synthesized from fly ash to study the effect of various parameters, namely pH, temperature, agitation speed, adsorption time, zeolite loading, and dye concentration, on dye removal efficiency. Dye removal efficiency increased with increase in adsorbent dosage, adsorption time, and stirrer speed, and the optimal values of zeolite dose, adsorption time, and stirrer speed were found to be 10 g/L, 6 h, and 300 rpm respectively. On the other hand, dye removal efficiency decreased with increase in the initial dye concentration as well as temperature, indicating that the adsorption process is exothermic and is effective at low concentrations of adsorbate. Maximum dye removal was obtained at low pH values (between 2 and 5), indicating the fact that the zeolite surface is positively charged. Experimental data matched well with the pseudo-first-order kinetic model and the Freundlich equilibrium isotherm. The most important observation in this work is that zeolite synthesized from fly ash could act as a very effective adsorbent for the removal of amido black dye from its aqueous solutions.