Novel Adsorbent from Agricultural Waste-Cashew Nut Shell for Methylene Blue Dye Removal: Optimization By Response Surface Methodology

Activated carbon, Cashew Nut Shell (CNS), prepared from an agricultural waste has been utilized as an adsorbent for the removal of Methylene Blue (MB) dye from an aqueous solution. A 2⁴ full factorial central composite design is successfully employed for experimental design and analysis of the results. Batch adsorption study is carried out with the variables pH, adsorbent dose, initial dye concentration and time. The Response Surface Methodology (RSM) is applied to model the process and optimize the variable. The experimental values were in good agreement with predicted values. The optimum values of pH, adsorbent dose, initial dye concentration and time are found to be 10, 2.1846 g/L, 50 mg/L and 63 minutes for complete removal of MB dye respectively.