Preparation and Characterisation of adsorbent prepared from sewage sludge for removal of methylene blue

Abstract

The objective of this study is to valorize an urban waste, the sludges from the wastewater treatment plant of Boumerdes/Algeria for the removal of methylene blue dye in aqueous solution by adsorption. The material made from this sludge has been characterized by various techniques: X-ray fluorescence microscopy (XRF), X- ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) to obtain information concerning their structures and their compositions.A systematic study of various parameters such as: effect of adsorbent dosage, contact time and initial dye concentration was carried out in order to optimize the ideal conditions for a good adsorption of the studied pollutant; especially the kinetics of adsorption.The exploitation of experimental results using different kinetic models and adsorption isotherms showed that the sludge has similar adsorption characteristics to those of activated carbon, which perfectly confirms the applicability of the activated sludge in the wastewater treatment.