Plant waste materials from restaurants as the adsorbents for dyes

Abstract

This paper has demonstrated the valorization of inexpensive and readily available restaurant waste containing most consumed food and beverage residues as adsorbents for methylene blue dye. Coffee, tea, lettuce and citrus waste have been utilized without any pre-treatment, thus the adsorption capacities and dye removal efficiency were determined. Coffee waste showed highest adsorbent capacity, followed by tea, lettuce and citrus waste. The dye removal was more effective as dye concentration increases from 5 up to 60 mg/L. The favorable results obtained for lettuce waste have been especially encouraged, as this material has not been commonly employed for sorption purposes. Equilibrium data fitted very well in a Freundlich isotherm model, whereas pseudo-second-order kinetic model describes the process behavior. Restaurant waste performed rapid dye removal at no cost, so it can be adopted and widely used in industries for contaminated water treatment.