Abstract

Dyes are among the class of compounds considered dangerous to aquatic flora and fauna, thus it is important to treat waste water contaminated by this substances. Among different treatment techniques, adsorption shows an efficient and inexpensive method for treating large amount of waste. Babassu coconut charcoal (BCC) arises as an alternative to charcoal production, because it is a quite biomass found in several of Brazil. The BCC was treated with citric acid and the babassu coconut charcoal modified with citric acid (BCCMod) was used in the adsorption tests with the methylene blue (MB). The results show that citric acid acted on the charcoal surface without being incorporated into their structure. The adsorption kinetics in this study is governed by the pseudo-second-order model, where the amount adsorbed in the equilibrium was 1.5424 mg g-1 agreement with the value calculated for this model 1.5625 mg g-1. Among the models employed in this study for adsorption isotherms, what better applied to the experimental data was the Langmuir model, with a correlation coefficient of 0.9870.

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