An Experiment on Using Activated Carbon to Remove Direct Dyes from Wastewater Collected from the Textile Dyeing Industry

Abstract Environmentalists have been raising concerns about the concentration of dye in wastewater. A wide range of industries are the major contributors to increasing the percentage of dyes in wastewater, such as the food, paper, fabric, makeup, and textile sectors. This is really posing an issue for many organisms living in water. A range of biological, physical, and chemical techniques have been developed to eliminate dye from wastewater. Different treatment techniques are well known for their efficiency in colour removal since different industries utilise different dyes. Adsorption, filtering, and coagulation/flocculation are well-known methods for physical treatment. For biological treatment, the use of microbes and enzymes, in addition to biosorption and biodegradation, is well known for its efficiency. Furthermore, the chemical treatment used ozonation, photocatalysis, and electron transport. This research used an experimental method to test the efficiency of activated carbon (AC) created from sawdust as a dye remover from wastewater. Sawdust AC was chemically and physically treated, and it was characterised by XRD, BET, SEM, FTIR, and EDX, which revealed a significant up-taking capacity that reached 73% of direct blue, green, and orange dye from its surface. It was discovered that pH values of 3 and below are optimal for the adsorption of direct dyes onto sawdust carbon. The findings suggest that sawdust carbon might be used to remove colours from wastewater at a lower cost than commercial activated carbon.