Utilization of acid treated cocoyam leaf for Congo red dye adsorption: Kinetics, equilibrium and thermodynamic studies

Abstract

With the ever-increasing leaves of industry-induced water contamination, the focus has been shifting towards the development of   environmentally friendly systems for the removal of pollutants from effluents. In the current study, batch experiments were carried out to study the adsorption capacity of acid-treated cocoyam leaf to remove Congo red dye from aqueous solution. The acid-treated adsorbent was characterized by FTIR to determine the functional groups that may be responsible for the uptake of the dye. Different experimental parameters such as the contact time, dosage, initial concentration, pH and temperature were tested. Results from the study confirmed that optimum adsorption conditions were found at a pH 2, a temperature of 40 °C at the dosage of 0.6 g and contact time of 50 min at 30 ppm. Kinetic studies showed that the adsorption of Congo red followed the Lagergren pseudo-first-order kinetic model, while the Langmuir isotherm best described the equilibrium studies. The data from the thermodynamics study disclosed that the reaction is both feasible and spontaneous. The results obtained showed that acid-treated cocoyam leaf posed a very good potential green material for Congo red dye removal.