Abstract
Activated carbon from oak tree is used as adsorbent for the removal of noxious anionic dye sunset yellow. The prepared adsorbent is characterized using X-ray diffraction, Scanning Electron microscopy equipped with Energy-Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. In addition to this, parameters like initial concentration, adsorbent dosage, contact time, pH, and particle size on the uptake of SY dye from wastewater is well investigated and optimized. For maximum adsorption, the initial concentration of 10 mg/L; adsorbent dose of 0.25 g; pH =1; contact time = 35 min and particle size = 150–250 μm is found to be optimal value. The adsorption isotherm data at different adsorbent dosage of 0.05–0.25 g is in agreement with the Langmuir isotherm having Qmax = 5.8377–30.1205 mg/g. On the other hand, models like, Group Method of Data Handling and multiple linear regression were used to forecast the removal efficiency of noxious anionic dye sunset yellow and from results, it is specified that the GMDH model possess a high performance than MLR model for forecasting removal percentage of SY dye. Hence, activated carbon from oak tree can be efficiently used as adsorbent for the removal of SY dye from wastewater.
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•AC from oak tree wood demonstrates efficient removal of Sunset Yellow dye from water.•Batch studies reveal optimum performance at pH 1 and contact time of 35 mins.•Modeling reveals a better fit of experimental data with the Langmuir and pseudo-second order model.•GMDH model shows better performance in forecasting removal of the dye.•Results reveal that soft computing model is a good tool for predicting adsorption performance.