Author(s)

Handojo Djati Utomo^1*, Ru Yi Natalie Phoon¹, Zhonghuan Shen¹, Li Hui Ng¹, Zheng Bang Lim²

¹Division of Civil Engineering, School of Architecture and the Built Environment, Singapore Polytechnic, Singapore City, Singapore.
²Advanced Material Technology Centre, Technology Development Office, Singapore Polytechnic, Singapore City, Singapore.

Methylene Blue (MB) has been found to be one of the most common dyes used in the industries. Adsorption process using Activated Carbon (AC) has been proven to be able to remove MB effectively but the treatment cost using the adsorbent is considered expensive due to its high energy cost. Sugarcane Bagasse (SGB) is an agricultural by-product and abundantly available material in many developing countries. FTIR and XRD were used to confirm the existence of ligno-cellulose content of SGB after experiencing various chemical treatments. SGB had 5 - 40 folds higher MB removal capability than commercial activated carbon, depending on the pH of water medium and the type of SGB. SGB showed a much better performance in adsorbing MB in alkaline environment than in acidic environment. Langmuir adsorption isotherm model was able to estimate the removal capacity of non-chemical treated SGB (NSGB) and CaCl2 treated SGB (CSGB) at 84.7458 mg/g and 35.2113 mg/g respectively. An extremely higher MB removal capacity was found for BSGB due to the complexity of the surface site after chemical treatment. NaOH treated SGB (BSGB) with low lignin residue content was the most favourable adsorbent for MB adsorption.

Adsorbent, Methylene Blue, Ligno-Cellulose, Sugarcane Bagasse

Utomo, H. , Phoon, R. , Shen, Z. , Ng, L. and Lim, Z. (2015) Removal of Methylene Blue Using Chemically Modified Sugarcane Bagasse. Natural Resources, 6, 209-220. doi: 10.4236/nr.2015.64019.