1110-0354

EGYPTIAN JOURNAL OF AQUATIC RESEARCH

VOL. 31, NO.1 2005.

USE OF RICE HUSK FOR ADSORPTION OF DIRECT DYES

FROM AQUEOUS SOLUTION: A CASE STUDY OF
DIRECT F. SCARLET
OLA ABDELWAHAB, AHMED EL NEMR*, AMANY EL SIKAILY, AZZA KHALED
Environmental Division, National Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries, Kayet Bay,
El-Anfushy, Alexandria, Egypt
Key words: Adsorption, Rice Husk, Direct Red-23, Isotherms, Kinetics

ABSTRACT

Dyes are widely used for coloring in textile industries, and significant losses occur
during the manufacture and processing of dyes, and these lost chemicals are discharged in
the effluent. Adsorption of dyes is a new technology for treatment of wastewater containing
different types of dyes. The goal of this research is to develop a new and efficient
adsorbent of direct dyes. Thus, rice husk, a commonly available agriculture waste in Egypt,
was investigated as viable materials for treatment of synthetic Direct F. Scarlet (Direct Red
23) containing industrial wastewater. The results obtained from the batch experiments
revealed the ability of the rice husk in removing the Direct Red 23 and are dependent on the
dye and rice husk concentrations. Maximum dye colour removal was observed after 72
hours for all the system conditions. Kinetics of adsorption was investigated as well as
equilibrium isotherm of Direct Red 23 using Langmuir model, which represented a
correlation coefficient > 0.96. Activation of rice husk was studied in order to increase its
capacity to remove the dye. The maximum adsorption capacity was ~13 mg of dye per one
gram of dry rice husk. This study showed that the rice husk could be employed as low-cost
and effective sorbent for the removal of Direct F. Scarlet from aqueous solution.

INTRODUCTION

The release of the colored dyes into

the ecosystem is a dramatic source of esthetic
pollution, of eutrophication, and of
perturbations in aquatic life. Some azo dyes
and their degradation products such as
aromatic amines are highly carcinogenic
(Mohamed 2004). Proper treatment of the dye
plant effluent is thus, a matter of concern
before discharge. This led to an intensive
search for the best available technology,
which can be used for the removal and
remediation of dyes. In addition, it makes the
treatment of industrial effluent to be an
important target for industry and environment
protection. Different treatment methods are
described in the literature, including
filtration,
flocculation,
chemical
precipitation, ion exchange, membrane
separation, and adsorption (Tarley and
Arruda 2003).
Practically, dye removal
*Corresponding author

process requires the following potential

advantages for the adsorbent: (1) a large
accessible pore volume, (2) hydrophobicity,
(3) high thermal and hydrothermal stability,
(4) no catalytic activity, and (5) easy
regeneration. New approaches based on the
use of natural, inexpensive sorbent materials
for effluent treatment have been reported
(Marshall et al. 1999; Wafwoyo et al. 1999;
Vaughan et al. 2001). However, the use of
these materials is still limited, although they
show good adsorption capacity relative to
that of the other expensive treatment
processes (Dushenkov et al. 1995).
The adsorption process is one of the
efficient methods to remove contaminant
from effluent (Nigarn et al. 1996; Imagawa et
al. 2000; Mohan et al. 2001; Malik 2003).
The process of adsorption has an edge over
the other methods due to its sludge free clean
operation and complete removal of dye even

USE OF RICE HUSK FOR ADSORPTION OF DIRECT DYES FROM AQUEOUS SOLUTION: A CASE STUDY OF
DIRECT F. SCARLET

from dilute solutions. Activated carbon is the

most widely used adsorbent for this purpose
because of its extended surface area,
microporous structure, high adsorption
capacity and high degree of surface
reactivity. However, commercially available
activated carbons are very expensive. In
addition, the laboratory preparation of
activated carbons have been accompanied by
a number of problems such as combustion at
high temperature, pore blocking, and
hygroscopicity. This has led to search for
cheaper and simplest substituents.
Rice
husk,
an
undesirable
agriculture mass residue in Egypt, is a byproduct of the rice milling industry. It is one
of the most important agricultural residues in
quantity. It represents about 20% of the
whole rice produced, on weight basis of the
whole rice (Daifullah et al. 2003). The
estimated annual rice production of 500
million tones in developing countries,
approximately 100 million tones of rice husk
is available annually for utilization in these
countries aloe. Traditionally, rice husks have
been used in manufacturing block employed
in civil construction as panels and was used
by the rice industry itself as a source of
energy for boilers (Della et al. 2001).
However, the amounts of rice husk available
are so far in excess of any local uses and have
posed disposal problems. It was chosen
because of its granular structure, chemical
stability and its local availability at very low
cost and there is no need to regenerate them
due to their low production costs.
The main constituents of rice husk
are: 64-74% volatile matter and 12-16% fixed
carbon and 15-20% ash (Armesto et al. 2002;
Daifullah et al. 2003).
The rice husk
composition are: 32.24% cellulose, 21.34%
hemicellulose,
21.44%
lignin,
1.82%
extractives, 8.11% water and 15.05% mineral
ash (Govindarao 1980; Rhman et al. 1997;
Nakbanpote et al. 2000). The mineral ash is
94.5-96.34% SiO2.
The purpose of this work is to
investigate the adsorption capacity of the
untreated and activated rice husk on

adsorption of direct dyes from aqueous

solution. Direct F. Scarlet (Direct red 23)
dye was selected for the adsorption
experiment due to its presence in several
industrial effluents such as textile, tannery,
paper, soap, cosmetics, polishes, wax etc. As
Direct F. Scarlet has diazo group, it has
toxicity and carcinogenic nature. The dye
(DR-23), dose will not allow sunlight to pass
through
and
thereby
affects
the
photosynthesis of aquatic plants. Modern
dyes are resistant to conventional biological
treatment but these azo dyes are reduced to
colorless primary amines by this treatment.
These primary amines are even more toxic
than the original dye. The equilibrium and
kinetics of DR-23 adsorption on rice husk
were investigated. The Langmuir model was
used to fit the equilibrium isotherm. The
batch contact time method was used to
measure the adsorption rate and kinetic
parameters were then evaluated.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Preparation of Sorbents
Rice husk was obtained from local
rice mills and was washed several times with
water followed by filtration. The cleaned rice
husk was oven dried completely at 105C,
then cooled and sieved to 250-500 m size,
which was used without further treatment.
Another part of same size fraction of rice
husk was exposed to activation using citric
acid (Marshall et al., 1999; Wartelle and
Marshall 2000; Marshall and Wartelle 2003)
which was reported as follows: 100 g of rice
husk were soaked in 0.6M citric acid for 2 h
at 20C. The acid-husk slurry was dried
overnight at 50C and the dried husk was then
heated to 120C. The reacted product was
washed repeatedly with distilled water (200
mL per g of husk) to remove any excess of
citric acid followed by oven drying overnight
at 100C.
Preparation of Dye Solution
Direct F. scarlet (Direct Red 23) was
obtained from ASMA Company and was
used without further purification. Its

AHMED EL NEMR et al.

molecular formula is C35H25N7Na2O10S2 and

its colour index C.I. 29160 (Fig. 1). A stock
solution of the dye was prepared by
dissolving 1 gram of dye in 1000 mL distilled
water to make a stock solution of 1000 mg/l.
The experimental solution was prepared by
diluting definite volume of the stock solution
to get the desired concentration.
For
absorhance
measurements
a UV-VIS
spectrophotometer (Milton Roy, Spectronic
21D) was employed using silica cells of path
length 1 cm. The maximum wavelength max
for the DR-23 was measured at 507 nm.
Concentrations during experimental work
were determined from a standard calibration
curve.
Adsorption Studies
Equilibrium adsorption isotherms
for the untreated and activated rice husk were
determined at agitation rate of 150-rpm at
room
temperature
and
different
concentrations of dye and rice husk. 10 g/l of
adsorbent (based on dry weight of rice husk)
was placed in a set of 250-mL Erlenmeyer
flasks and different initial dye concentrations
of (5, 10, 15, 20, 25 mg/l) were added to each
flask. The contents were shaken for 2 hours,
small amount was withdrawing and
centrifuged at 4000 rpm for 5 min. The
supernatant was analyzed for dye contents.
All experiments were carried out in duplicate
and the relative deviation was less than 5%.
The adsorption behaviours of the
samples were studied by evaluating the

percentage removal efficiency of DR-23,

from the relation
Removal efficiency = [(C0 C) C0] 100

(1)

where C0 is the initial concentration of DR23, C is the solution concentration after

adsorption at any time.
Effect of time on the dye removal at
various
predetermined
intervals
was
monitored by shaking the reaction mixture,
centrifuged and analyzed for the dye content
at the end of each contact time. Each flask
represents an interval, i.e. one point on the
curve. Time experiments were studied for
different sorbent concentrations to study the
effect of sorbent dosage on the adsorption of
colour. Experiments were performed using
sorbent concentrations of 2.5-10.0 g/l, in a
dye solution of 10.0 mg/l for both the
untreated and activated rice husk.
Kinetics
of
adsorption
were
determined by analyzing adsorptive uptake of
the dye colour from aqueous solution at
different time intervals. The amount of dye
adsorbed onto the rice husk qe (mg/l) was
calculated according to the following mass
balance equation
qe = (Co Ce) V W
(2)
where Co and Ce are the initial and
equilibrium concentrations mg/l of dye,
respectively, V is the volume of the solution
(l), and W is the weight (g) of the rice husk
used (adsorbent).

Fig.1. Structure of Direct F. Scarlet (Direct Red 23 or Direct F. Orange).

USE OF RICE HUSK FOR ADSORPTION OF DIRECT DYES FROM AQUEOUS SOLUTION: A CASE STUDY OF
DIRECT F. SCARLET

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The adsorption of DR-23 on rice

husk and citric acid treated rice husk were
studied for its possible importance in the
treatment of containing industrial effluents.
The influence of agitation time, sorbent and
dye concentrations on removal of DR-23
were studied in Figs 2a and 2b. The amount
of adsorbed dye (mg/g) increased with
increase in agitation time and concentration
and remained nearly constant after
equilibrium time. The rate of removal of
colour was rapid initially. The rate levelled
off gradually and then attained a more or less
constant value beyond which there was no
significant increase in colour removal. The
time required to attain equilibrium was 120
minutes for untreated and 90 minutes for
activated rice husk. The activated rice husk
possesses the highest sorption capacity,
especially for 2.5 and 5 g/l of sorbent. The
removal curves are single, smooth and
continuous leading to saturation.
However, from Figs 2a and 2b, the
dye colour removal pattern showed that
increase in the biomass concentration
indicated increase dye removal capacity,
which may be attributed to the increase of
biomass of rice husk which gives more
surface area for sorption of the dye molecule
on the surface (Mohan et al. 2001). The
incremental increase of 30% was observed
for increase of biomass from 2.5 to 5 g/l and
another 30% for increase of biomass from 5
to 10 g/l for untreated rice husk. While for
citric acid treated rice husk, an incremental
increase of 10% was observed for every 2.5
g/l increase of biomass. It can also follow
from the above discussion that the rice husk
biomass uptake was dependent on both the
dye concentration and rice husk biomass.
Adsorption isotherm
Adsorption data were analyzed
according to Langmuir model for both
untreated and citric acid treated rice husk.
The Langmuir equation, which has been
successfully applied to many adsorption
systems (Malik 2003; Namasivayam and

Kavitha 2003; Waranusantigul 2003) is given

by the equation:
(3)
qe= (KL Sm Ce) (1 + KL Ce)
Where KL is the equilibrium adsorption
coefficient (l/mg), Sm is the maximum
adsorption capacity (mg/g), Ce the adsorbate
equilibrium concentration. Eq. (3) can be
written in the following linear form:
Ce (XM) = [1 (KL Sm)] + (Ce Sm) (4)
where X = amount of solute adsorbed per unit
weight of adsorbent and M = the adsorbent
dosage required to reduce the initial
concentration C0. The dye adsorption data
were plotted according to linear Langmuir
isotherms. A linearized plot of Ce/(X/M)
versus Ce was obtained for the untreated and
activated rice husk as shown in Fig. 3.
Regression data and adsorption parameters
obtained are indicated in Table 1. One
advantage of the Langmuir equation in its
linear form is that the adsorption maximum
can be calculated from the regression. This
parameter and the equilibrium dye
concentrations are useful in describing the
adsorbent capacity (Tokunaga and Uthium
1997). The data for biosorption of DR-23
onto untreated and citric acid treated rice
husk were fitted to the Langmuir model (r =
0.99 and 0.97, respectively). The high fitness
of the Langmuir model for this biosorption
system indicates the monolayer coverage of
dye on the outer surface of biosorbent, in
which the adsorption of dye ions occurs
uniformly on the active part of the surface.
The fits are quite well for both sorbents, to
suggest the applicability of the Langmuir
model for the investigated system. Sm and KL,
Langmuir constants, are the measures of
maximum adsorption capacity and energy of
adsorption, respectively. The values of
Langmuir parameters along with the
correlation coefficients were computed from
the intercept and the slope of the fitted
Langmuir equation. Activated rice husk is
observed to have higher adsorption capacity
than the untreated rice husk in the removal of
DR-23.

AHMED EL NEMR et al.

% Removal

2.5 g/l

5.0 g/l

10.0 g/l

90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Time (min)
Fig. 2a. Influence of contact time and weight of untreated rice husk on removal of
DR-23 using dye concentration of 10 mg/l.

% Removal

2.5 g/l

5.0 g/l

10.0 g/l

90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Time (min)
Fig. 2b. Influence of contact time and weight of activated rice husk on removal of
DR-23 using dye concentration of 10 mg/l.

USE OF RICE HUSK FOR ADSORPTION OF DIRECT DYES FROM AQUEOUS SOLUTION: A CASE STUDY OF
DIRECT F. SCARLET

activated rice husk

Untreated rice husk

12

Ce/(X/M)

10
8
6
4
2
0
0

10

15

20

25

Ce (mg/l)
Fig. 3. Fitting adsorption data with Langmuir using sorbent concentration of 10 g/l.

Table 1. Langmuir constants for the adsorption of DR-23 using untreated and modified
rice husk.
KL (l/mg)
RL
r- value
Adsorbent
Sm (mg/g)
Untreated rice husk

2.415

0.17

0 < RL <1

0.99

Activated rice husk

4.35

0.14

0 < RL <1

0.97

The essential characteristic of a

Langmuir isotherm can be expressed in terms
of a dimensionless constant separation factor,
RL, which is defined by Mohan et al. (1974)
as follows
RL= 1 [1 + (KL C0)]
(5)
where C0 is the initial concentration and RL
indicates the shape of the isotherm. The types
of equilibrium isotherm are related with the
RL values as RL > 1 for unfavourable, RL = 1
for linear, 0< RL < 1 for favourable and RL >
0 for irreversible. In this work, the values of
R L were found to be less than 1 and greater
than 0 indicating the favourable adsorption of
DR-23 on rice husk.

Kinetics of Adsorption
The kinetics of adsorption of DR-23,
on both untreated and activated rice husk,
was studied by applying the Lagergeren first
order rate equation (Lee et al. 1996; Trivedi
et al. 1973).
log (qe-q) = log qe (Kt 2.303)
(6)
where q (mg/g) is the amount of dye
adsorbed at time t, qe (mg/g) is the amount of
dye adsorbed at equilibrium, and K is the
equilibrium rate constant of sorption. The
straight line plots of log (qe q) versus t for
dye at different biomasses under the used
conditions indicated the validity of Eq. (6)
and the process follows first order kinetics

AHMED EL NEMR et al.

(Figs. 4a and 4b). Rate constants were

calculated and the first order rate constants
and correlation coefficient (r-value), for
different dye concentrations with untreated
and citric acid treated rice husk are given in
Table (2).
In batch stirring reactors, the
transport of adsorbate from bulk solution to
the interior surface of the pores is often the
rate limiting step of the adsorption process
(Weber 1972; Annadurai 1999). The rate
parameters controlling intra-particle diffusion
for DR-23 with both types of adsorbents are
determined
using
the
equation
of
Waranusantigul 2003:
qt = Kp t0.5
(7)

where qt is the amount of dye adsorbed

(mg/g) at time t; and Kp is the intra-particle
diffusion rate constant (mg/g.Min0.5).
Plotting the amount sorbed per unit
weight of sorbent (qt) vs t0.5 indicates the
intra-particle diffusion rate, Kp, values,
obtained from the slopes of the linear plots
for each initial concentration for both types of
adsorbents. Intra-particle diffusion plots are
shown in Figs. 5a and 5b. It was found that
the plots of different dye concentrations were
linear and pass through the origin for both
untreated and citric acid treated rice husk.
The data assigned that the rate determining
step may be controlled by intra-particle
diffusion.

Table 2. Rate constants for the removal of DR-23 by untreated and activated rice husk.
Type of adsorbent
Untreated rice husk

Activated rice husk

Concentration of
adsorbent (g/l)
5.0

Dye Concentration
(mg/l)
5
10
15
20
25

Rate constant
K (min-1)
0.039
0.035
0.037
0.037
0.035

r- value

10

5
10
15
20
25

0.051
0.055
0.091
0.049
0.053

0.96
0.98
0.99
0.93
0.93

5.0

5
10
15
20
25

0.014
0.018
0.018
0.036
0.013

0.89
0.99
0.92
0.96
0.98

10

5
10
15
20
25

0.083
0.077
0.039
0.024
0.026

0.98
0.97
0.98
0.96
0.96

0.98
0.97
0.96
0.98
0.99

USE OF RICE HUSK FOR ADSORPTION OF DIRECT DYES FROM AQUEOUS SOLUTION: A CASE STUDY OF
DIRECT F. SCARLET

5 mg/l
15 mg/l
25 mg/l

1.0

log(qe-q)

0.5

10 mg/l
20 mg/l

0.0
-0.5
-1.0
-1.5
-2.0
0

20

40

60

80

100

Time (min)
Fig. 4a. Lagergren plots for the removal of DR-23 by adsorption on untreated rice husk
and sorbent concentration of 5 g/l.

5 mg/l
15 mg/l
25 mg/l

0.4
0.2

10 mg/l
20 mg/l

log(qe-q)

0.0
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6
-0.8
-1.0
-1.2
-1.4
0

20

40

60

80

100

Time (min)
Fig. 4b. Lagergren plots for the removal of DR-23 by adsorption on activated rice husk
and adsorbent concentration of 5 g/l.

AHMED EL NEMR et al.

5 mg/l

3.5

15 mg/l

20 mg/l

3.0

qt

2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
0

0.5

10

12

Fig. 5a. Intra-particle diffusion plots for the removal of DR-23 using untreated rice husk.

5 mg/l

3.5

15 mg/l

20 mg/l

3.0

qt

2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
0

0.5

10

12

Fig. 5b. Intra-particle diffusion for the removal of DR-23 on activated rice husk.

USE OF RICE HUSK FOR ADSORPTION OF DIRECT DYES FROM AQUEOUS SOLUTION: A CASE STUDY OF
DIRECT F. SCARLET

CONCLUSION

The results obtained from the

present investigation revealed the ability of
rice husk in treating azo dye effluents, e.g.
Direct Red-23 dye, using rice husk activated
with citric acid, which was capable of
removing Direct Red-23 dye. Adsorption is
highly dependent on the contact time,
adsorbent dose and dye concentration. The
adsorption isotherm of DR-23 onto rice husk
biomass is described by the Langmuir
isotherm model. Kinetics of adsorption
follows Lagergren first order kinetic model
with film diffusion being the constitutive
rate-controlling
step.
The
monolayer
adsorption capacity obtained from Langmuir
isotherms for DR-23 was relatively higher for
the citric acid treated rice husk compared to
that obtained without chemical treatment.
Consequently, safely can point to the use of
this natural material due to abundance and
very cheap biomass. This leads to its
superiority as a potential sorbent in removal
of some coloured dyes from waste waters.

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