Safranin removal by fine soil: thermodynamics and kinetics of adsorption

Abstract Environmental problems caused by human intervention in nature are some of the most critical challenges facing human societies. It is essential to use suitable adsorbents to remove pollutants. The abundance, natural abundance and low cost of fine soil have made it a good candidate for removing environmental pollutants. In this research, removal of safranin dye by natural and acidic-organic-treated fine soil with sulfuric acid and ethanolamine was studied. The characteristics of natural and acidic-organic-treated fine soil were confirmed using X-ray diffraction, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller and scanning electron microscopy techniques. The adsorbents were placed in contact with different concentrations of safranin dye solution separately. After that, the effects of adsorbent amount (0.4–3.2 g L −1 ), contact time (0–60 min), adsorbate concentration (5–20 ppm) and pH (3–11) were evaluated regarding the optimum safranin adsorption process. The greatest adsorption capacity of fine soil was calculated as 1250 mg g –1 . The experimental results were evaluated using thermodynamic and kinetic models. The data showed that the process follows the Langmuir isotherm model and pseudo-second-order kinetic model. The intraparticle diffusion model estimated the possible mechanism of dye adsorption. Overall, it can be deduced that natural fine soil is an efficient remover of human pollutants.