Adsorptive removal of cochineal red a dye from aqueous solutions using yeast

This paper presents an experimental study on Cochineal Red A dye adsorptive removal by yeast. Batchequilibrium and kinetic tests were conducted in constant temperature of 30◦C for the dye’s initialconcentration range of 0.02–0.50 g/L (pH=3and 10) and 0.02–0.35 g/L (pH=7:6). The equilibriumwas reached after 105–120 min. Yeast demonstrated the adsorption capacity of 10.16 mg/g for acidicenvironment (pH=3) and slightly lower values (8.13 mg/g and 8.38 mg/g respectively) for neutral(pH=7:6) and alkaline environment (pH=10). The experimental equilibrium results were fitted withLangmuir, Freundlich, Sips and Toth isotherm models. Most of them (Freundlich model being theexception) were proven sufficient for the experimental data correlation. The adsorption kinetic studiesshowed that the pseudo-second order model fits better the experimental data than the pseudo-first-order model. Results achieved from intra-particle diffusion model indicate that powdered yeast are anonporous adsorbent. The percentage of solution discoloration reached a maximum value of 75% atpH=3for an initial dye concentration of 0.02 g/L.