Ultrasound-assisted Acid red dye removal using leather fibre wastes as matrix: ‘intra wastes interaction’ approach

Abstract

It is desirable to make effective use of solid wastes, as well as waste liquors, of the dye house generated from leather processing. The present study deals with the adsorption of Acid red 26 (Xylidine ponceau) dye using leather fibre waste (buffing dust) as substrate matrix by the means of ultrasound, magnetic stirring and conventional heating. The research examined the effect of various process parameters: ultrasonic power, concentration of dye, temperature and time. The dye uptake data have been fitted with Freundlich and Langmuir isotherms, indicating a useful dye adsorption process. A mechanism for dye adsorption in leather fibres has also been proposed. This study shows that it is possible to remove dyes from dye house effluent streams using leather waste fibres of buffing dust by means of ultrasound. Two different toxic wastes produced by the same industry can be effectively contained. This ‘Intra wastes interaction’ approach could reduce the burden of discarding wastes of other materials in the leather industry.

Keywords:

• Leather
• Wastes
• Buffing
• Dyes
• Adsorption
• Ultrasound

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Prof. A.B. Mandal, Director, CSIR-CLRI, Chennai, India, for encouragement. The first author (Venkatasubramanian Sivakumar) is grateful to CSIR, New Delhi, India, for support; and to Dr C. Muralidharan, Chief Scientist, CLRI for motivation and valuable help. Thanks are due to the anonymous reviewer and the editor, Dr Michael Brett-Crowther, for their excellent suggestions on improving the manuscript.