A Study on calcium Alginate Encapsulation of coconut frond biochar on methylene blue removal

Industries that using dye in their process produced coloured effluent which contained methylene blue dyes that is high in toxicity and may cause severe effect if not treated. Hence, an efficient dye removal technique was prepared in this study through adsorption method with coconut frond waste as the adsorbent as they are abundantly available in this country. The objectives of this study were to prepare calcium alginate encapsulation of coconut frond biochar (CACFB) beads, to obtain the optimum condition of CACFB beads in methylene blue removal and to characterize CACFB beads using UV-visible spectrophotometer, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Fourier-Transform Infrared (FTIR) before and after the methylene blue removal process. Therefore, batch experiments were made to find out the optimum adsorption conditions of the coconut frond biochar coated with calcium alginate gel by varying the parameters. The collected coconut frond underwent carbonization to form CF biochar and cross-linking method was used to produce the calcium alginate beads. The optimum conditions obtained for highest methylene blue removal were at temperature, size, and dosage of 800oC, 63 µm and 1.0 g respectively. The percentages of dye removal also increase with increasing of pH and agitation speed. This showed that coconut frond biochar is an excellent adsorbent in dye removal, able to combat the problem of over-loaded disposed coconut frond at the landfill, bring improvement to the water quality and human health in general.