ADSORPTION OF NAPHTHALENE FROM AQUEOUS SOLUTIONS BY DE-OILED RICE BRAN CHARCOAL AS A LOW COST ADSORBENTBOHAR SINGH, TANDEEP SINGH, JOBANDEEP SINGH, RAJIV ARORA AND B.S WALIAAbstract Poly aromatic hydrocarbons are toxic to the living bodies even though present in trace amounts. In this study, De-oiled rice bran charcoal was used as adsorbent for the adsorption of naphthalene in aqueous solution. The De-oiled rice bran charcoal was characterized using XRD and SEM-EDX. The batch experiments were performed to optimize the parameters for the maximum adsorption of the naphthalene and the parameters included were - pH, initial naphthalene concentration, amount of adsorbent, contact time and temperature of the naphthalene solution. A dose of 9.0 g L-1 of biosorbents in solutions with an initial pH of 6.0, an initial naphthalene concentration of 50 mg L-1 and a contact time of 75 minutes resulted in the maximum naphthalene removal efficiency. The Freundlich isotherm gave a better fit than the Langmuir isotherm indicating that the Biosorption was potentially multilayer. The adsorption kinetics were also studied, and it was found that the adsorption followed pseudo-second order kinetics, which implied that the biosorption was mainly a chemisorption process. The results indicate that De-oiled rice bran charcoal is an effective low-cost adsorbent for the removal of naphthalene ions from aqueous solutions due to its high naphthalene uptake capacity. |