Equilibrium, kinetics and thermodynamic study of the adsorptive removal of methylene blue from industrial wastewater by white cedar sawdust

The study evaluated the adsorption potential of white cedar sawdust (WCS) for dye removal. WCS was chosen from five preferred, abundant waste biomasses from Pakistan. Various parameters such as contact time, adsorbent dose, dye concentration, pH, and particle size were optimized for methylene blue (MB) dye adsorption. The adsorbent was characterized by FTIR, SEM, EDX and BET analyses. The surface area of the adsorbent was 1.43 m²·g^-1 and pore volume was 0.000687 cm³·g^-1. The adsorption data best fitted the isotherm models of Langmuir, Temkin, Dubinin–Radushkevich, and Freundlich. The maximum experimental adsorption capacity obtained was 55.15 mg·g^-1, which was in close agreement to the calculated adsorption capacity. Fitness of the pseudo-second order kinetics suggested chemisorption as the rate-limiting step. Thermodynamic study for adsorption was carried out to evaluate the Gibbs free energy (ΔG°), enthalpy (ΔH°) and entropy (ΔS°). The negative values ΔG° at the examined temperature range confirmed the spontaneous adsorption of MB onto WCS.