ADSORPTIVE REMOVAL OF CONGO RED DYE FROM AQUEOUS SOLUTION USING ALOE VERA AS A BIOSORBENT

Effluent generated from textile and paper industries contains a lot of toxic, carcinogenic, and teratogenic pigments. Azo dyes are one major category among them, which degrade and liberate aromatic amines, a class of chemical that raises the risk of cancer. Congo red (CR) is a commonly used diazo dye in various industries, but it is known to cause cancer, mutagenesis, and other toxicities to flora, wildlife, and humans and hence it is necessary to remove CR from industrial wastewater. Green adsorbents based on agricultural waste products provides a double advantage of eliminating the pollutants and management of agricultural residues. This project aims to create a green adsorbent from Aloe Vera (AV) waste to remove CR from samples of polluted water easily, affordably, and effectively as well as optimizing the adsorption process and improving the removal capability of AV leaves. In this work we use AR rind powder as the biosorbent to remove an azo dye Congo red from aqueous solutions using batch experiment procedures. Adsorption parameters such as contact time, CR concentration, AV dosage and pH were studied to determine the efficiency of CR dye removal. The time required for contact time equilibrium was 60 minutes. An AV dosage of 1.5g/L could remove almost 43ppm of CR dye from its 50 ppm solution giving an utmost efficiency of 85.30% for untreated leave