CHEMICAL MODIFICATION OF WATER HYACINTH FOR THE REMOVAL OF DYESTUFFS

Abstract

Water Hyacinth (WH), an aquatic weed, is a good heavy metal adsorbent. Their adsorbing capacity and binding selectivity can be increased by converting the WH’s hydroxyl functional group into the desired ones. In this report, the chemical modifications of WH by cyanoethylation (WH-CE), amidoximation (WH-AO) were carried out. The chemical testing and the FTIR spectrums of the WH, WH-CE and WH-AO indicated that higher nitrogen content of the modified WH than that of WH was found with the existing of nitrile and amine functional group on WH-CE and WH-AO, respectively. The adsorption of Acid Blue 25 and Basic Blue 9 by WH and WH-AO were studied. Based on Freundlich adsorption isotherm, WH-AO has a much higher dye-adsorption capacity than does WH. The adsorption capacity of WH for BB9 was higher than AB25. For WH-AO, the adsorption capacity of AB25 was higher than WH

Keywords

• dyestufsf, water hyacinth powder, chemical modification of water hyacinth, adsorption

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