Adsorption of phenol from aqueous solution by water hyacinth ash

Abstract

The potential of water hyacinth ash for phenol adsorption from aqueous solution was studied. Batch kinetic and isotherm studies were carried out under varying experimental conditions of contact time, phenol concentration, adsorbent dosage and pH. The adsorption of phenol decreased with increasing pH. The Freundlich and Langmuir adsorption models were used for the mathematical description of adsorption equilibrium and it was found that the experimental data fitted very well to the Langmuir model. Batch adsorption models, based on the assumption of the pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order models, were applied to examine the kinetics of the adsorption. The results showed that kinetic data followed closely to the pseudo-second-order model.