Copper (II) Oxide particles as Adsorbent for Removal of Alkali Blue; Isotherm and Kinetic Studies

Adsorption behaviour of copper (II) oxide particles (CuO-Ps) for the removal of Alkali Blue (AB) was studied. Different adsorption variables such as contact time, initial concentration and pH for the adsorption process were investigated by batch adsorption studies. FTIR was carried out to determine the functional groups present at the surface of the particle with functional groups such as –OH, C=C, C-H, C≡C detected. The percentage removal and optimum contact time for the removal of AB was 84.8% at 10 min. The experimental isotherms data were analyzed using Langmuir, Temkin, Freundlich and Dubinin-Radushkevich (D-R) isotherms and it was observed that AB fits closely to Langmuir with R2 value of 0.884. Kinetics studies shows that the adsorption process fits better to pseudo-second order with the experimental values of qe 4.242 been closer to the calculated values of the qe 4.108. Effect of pH shows that it adsorb better at the initial pH of 5.30. Lower value of mean square energy of 0.707 kJ/mol indicates that the adsorption process is physical. The results indicated that copper (II) oxide particle can be used as a low-cost adsorbent for the removal of AB from aqueous solutions.