Removal of methyl red from wastewater using Banana Pseudostem fibers as an adsorbent

Discharging of huge amount of wastewater from textiles industry has caused harm to the environmental. The wastewater treatment has become one of the biggest difficulties confronted by the textiles industry. Nowadays, the capability of agricultural waste as adsorbent to remove dye from the industrial wastewater has been proved by many researcher. Agricultural waste can help to treat the wastewater as well as to reduce environmental problem cause by waste at the plantation. This study represents the potential of banana pseudostem fibers waste as adsorbent for dye removal. The methyl red dye solution was used in this study because methyl red dye that often used in textiles industry can give negative impact to environment and human health. Two type of adsorbent were used in this study which is raw materials and activated carbon from the banana pseudostem fibers. Four parameters of optimization were studied which is contact time, adsorbent dosage, concentration and pH. The experimental result showed, for raw materials from banana pseudostem fibers, the highest percentage of methyl red dye removal was 98.20% and the optimum condition 120 minutes contact time, 0.2g adsorbent dosage, 20 mg/L concentration and pH 3. For the activated carbon, the highest percentage of methyl red dye removal was 99.01% and the optimum condition 30 minutes of contact time, 0.1g of adsorbent dosage, 20 mg/L of concentration and pH 3. This study can conclude that the activated carbon from banana pseudostem fibers have the highest potential to be used as adsorbent to remove dye from the wastewater compared to the raw material from banana pseudostem fibers.