Enhanced sorption capacity of the metal-dye system from water effluents by using polish activated industrial waste

The activated coal fly ash (FA) treated with NaOH and hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (HDTMABr) was used as adsorbent for removal of cadmium(II) ions and rhodamine B (RB) form an aqueous solution. Characterization of FA and FA-HDTMABr were done by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The sorption equilibrium in the system were analysed by isotherm models, such as Freundlich, Langmuir, generalized Langmiur-Freundlich, Redlich-Peterson, Jovanović, extended Jovanović, Tóth, Fumkin-Fowler-Guggenheim, Fowler-Guggenheim-Jovanović-Freundlich, Temkin, Dubinin-Radushkevich, Halsey, Brunauer Emmett and Teller. The evaluation of fitting of the isotherms studied experimentally points was carried out by means of the reduced chi-square test and the coefficient of determination. The maximum monolayer adsorption capacity of the FA-HDTMABr was found to be 744 mg·g−1 and 666 mg·g−1 for Cd(II) and RB, respectively. The PFO, PSO, Elovich mass transfer, liquid film diffusion and intra-particle diffusion models were analysed. Sorption kinetics data were well fitted by PSO model. The Elovich and intra-particle model also revealed that there are two separate stages in the sorption process, namely, the external diffusion and the inter-particle diffusion.