Application of Carpobrotus edulis extract in removal of a cationic dye

Abstract

Water pollution is one of the challenging problems in the world. Textile wastewaters contain high amounts of dye combinations. It is seriously dangerous to the environment and human beings. Most of the dyes that are used are usually stable and hard to decompose, and they are highly resistant to microbial, physical, and chemical decomposition methods, so, it is difficult to eliminate them. The presence of organic dyes in wastewater prevents the penetration of light into the water, disruption of photosynthesis, reducing the toxic effects of oxygen and water, irreparable damage to the environment brought. Therefore, it is essential for the textile industry to treat wastewater before they discharge to the environment. There are various methods for treating wastewaters containing dyes. The coagulation and flocculation using plant extracts is one of the methods to be economically viable and environmentally friendly. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of Carpobrotus edulis extract in textile wastewater treatment. For this purpose, the effect of pH on dye removal was investigated. In this study, plant extract of C. edulis was used as coagulant to remove methylene blue as a model cationic dye from water at different pH values. The results showed that the highest removal efficiency of this dye was in the alkaline pH (PH = 9) and 99% of the initial dyes was removed from 50 cc of a dye solution with concentration of 50 mg/L.