T. El-nabarawy et Sa. Khedr, Removal of pollutants from water using untreated and treated sawdust and water hyacinth, ADSORPT S T, 18(4), 2000, pp. 385-398
Sawdust and water hyacinth are waste products which have no economical appl
ication in Egypt. They even constitute a solid waste as far as the environm
ent is concerned. As-received sawdust and water hyacinth were treated with
phosphoric acid, phosphoric acid + urea or phosphoric acid + urea + dimethy
lformamide. The as-received and treated samples were used for the removal o
f Methylene Blue, iodine, phenol and ammonia from their aqueous solutions.
The optimum conditions for the maximum adsorption of each pollutant were de
termined. The isotherms obtained obeyed the Freundlich and Langmuir equatio
ns in a satisfactory manner. The initial stages of adsorption follow first-
order kinetics as predicted from the Lagergren equation. Sawdust and water
hyacinth show promising potentialities for the removal of pollutants from w
ater and can, at least, be used as precursors for the preparation of effici
ent adsorbents for the removal of pollutants from water.