Removal of Methyl Orange from Wastewater Using Composite Material

Abstract

The textile industry is one of the pollute activities that most consume water. Industrial dyes are dangerous pollutants, resulting from the textile industry. The textile dyes significantly increase inhibit plant growth, enter the food chain, promote toxicity, and carcinogenicity. The removal of textiles dyes is usually proposed via adsorption represents a sustainable solution. A composite material was prepared by polystyrene in combination with commercial activated carbon. A series of experiments was done for water treatment by adsorption on composite materials made, to remove pollutants. The dye removal experiments were carried out and investigated spectrophotometrically using the batch technique.  Activated carbon/polystyrene composite material adsorbs an amount of methyl orange much higher than the activated carbon alone. The experimental results indicated that Composite materials can have high affinity and high capacity to remove methyl orange from contaminant water. These results show the possible use of the composite material for economic wastewater treatment.

Keywords: Composite materials, water treatment, activated carbon, methyl orange, adsorption.