Synthetic Anthraquinone Vat Dye Removal on NaCl-activated Agro Biomass: Process Characterisation and Modelling

Abstract

The carbon from activated African pear seeds (CAPS) was used to remove Golden Yellow (GY) from its aqueous solution. To find the best conditions, the adsorption removal of GY on CAPS was modelled using the response surface methodology (RSM) via Central Composite Design (CCD). The RSM and artificial neural network (ANN) approaches were used to simulate the process, and their predictive capabilities were compared. Contact period of 78.13 min, solution temperature of 313.57K, pH of solution: 4.24, and adsorbent dosage of 0.88 g led to 77.77% removal with a desirability of 1. The high values of R² (0.9879), adjusted R² (0.9767), and anticipated R² (0.9307) indicated that the RSM model can represent the elimination of GY dye with CAPS. The high R² value (0.9943) and statistical functional errors given by the artificial neural network modelled data depicted a more adequate correlation than the RSM. RSM may be used to optimise and characterise the removal of GY from aquatic environments since the experimental (77.93%) at the optimum settings is close to the predicted (77.77%) value. The mathematical models derived from the statistical analysis can be used to improve process conditions.