Salsola Tetragona as a new low-cost adsorbent for water treatment: highly effective adsorption of crystal violet.

ABSTRACT

Synthetic dyes are prevalent in aquatic environments, they have high toxicities, are non-degradable, and accumulate in the water. The removal of Crystal violet (CV) is carried out using batch experiments on the Salsola Tetragona (ST) plant as a novel adsorbent. The prepared adsorbent was analyzed by various methods (MEB, EDX, IRTF and PZC), to support its applicability as adsorbent. The adsorption study of CV is performed by optimizing the parameters affecting the adsorption process. The adsorption kinetics study is represented by pseudo-second-order (R2 = 0.999) and the adsorption process is limited by external mass transport. In addition, the isotherm results demonstrate that the Langmuir model interprets better the adsorption isotherm. The thermodynamic parameters suggest that the adsorption phenomena are spontaneous and exothermic. Furthermore, the adsorption reactions involved are of physisorption type, which facilitates the desorption of pollutants from the surface of the adsorbent. The results show that ST adsorbent effectively removes CV in an aqueous solution, which is demonstrated by the maximum amount adsorption of 246.7 mg.g-1 at optimum adsorption conditions pH = 6, adsorbent dose of 0.5 g.L-1, initial CV concentration of 10 mg.L-1, and adsorption time of 30 min at 298 K. Finally, these results can be considered as a useful reference for wastewater treatment using ST.

The novelty of our work, entitled "Salsola Tetragona as a New Low-Cost Adsorbent for Water Treatment Highly Effective Adsorption of Crystal Violet", lies in the utilization of a new biomass abundant in the southwestern region of Morocco. This plant as a novel material is used in its raw state as an adsorbent for removing a cationic dye. According to the literature, this material has not been previously employed in water treatment. Hence, to fill the gap in the literature, we examined its in-batch adsorption to remove crystal violet from the aqueous solution. The results show a high adsorption capacity compared to other natural biomass.