Adsorption of Methylene Blue by NaOH-modified Dead Leaves of Plane Trees

• DOI: 10.4236/cweee.2013.22b003
• Publication Date: 2013-06-13T08:22:10Z
• Authors: Lei Gong; Wei Sun; Lingying Kong
• Keywords: 01 natural sciences; 0105 earth and related environmental sciences

NaOH-modified dead leaves of plane trees were used as bioadsorbent to remove methylene blue (MB) from aqueous solution. Variable influencing factors, including contact time, temperature, initial MB concentration and pH were studied through single-factor experiments. The results showed that the initial concentration 100 mg/L, bioadsorbent of 2.5 g/L, pH of 7, room temperature were the best adsorption conditions. The NaOH-modified bioadsorbent had a high adsorption capacity for MB, and its saturated extent of adsorption was 203.28 mg/g, which was higher than the un-modified dead leaves (145.62 mg/g) and some other bioadsorbents. Finally, adsorption kinetics and isotherms were discussed, suggesting that the Langmuir isotherm model and Pseudo-second order kinetics were fitted well with the adsorption process.