Sorption of water soluble dyes using inorganic materials as sorbents

Abstract

Ion exchange technique has been used for treatment of wastewater containing dyes. Zirconium molybdate (ZM) an inorganic cation exchanger of the class of tetravalent metal acid salt has been used for the purpose. Sorption of dyes namely crystal violet (CV), methyleneblue (MB) and rhodamine6G (R6G) has been carried out on zirconium molybdate by varying <i style="">p</i>H and flow rate. The dyes can be effectively recovered by using dilute acids such as HCl, HNO₃ and H₂SO₄. Similar studies have also been carried out using zirconia (ZO) for comparison. Considerable differences in the binding of the dyes tested, have been observed. In general, heteropolycyclic dyes exhibit more affinity towards ZM as compared to ZO.