Removal of methylene blue dye from aqueous solution by using commercial granular activated carbon with different types of adsorbers

Abstract

This study is to compare the removal efficiency of methylene blue dye from synthetic solutions by using commercial granular activated carbon with different operational conditions and with different types of adsorbers in a continuous system for bothfixed-bed and fluidized-bed. Twenty experiments and different column systems were carried out at various initial concentrations, flow rate and bed depth. Activated carbon in fluidized bed achieved higher removal efficiencies than activated carbon in fixed bed. Column experiments (continuous system) showed that the use of fluidized bed instead of fixed bed reduces the contact time by about (11-21) % under the same operating conditions. It was showed that fluidized bed makes the process of adsorption faster due to increasing the adsorption surface area of the adsorbent which leads to reduce dead zones between the particles.