Sawdust as a natural and low cost adsorbent for the removal of brilliant cresyl blue dye from water samples

Sawdust which is the main waste from wood industry has been used as a raw material for removal of Brilliant Cresyl Blue toxic dye. The effects of various parameters such as pH, electrolyte concentration, adsorbent dose, contact time and agitation rate were studied for the removal of the dye in a concentration of 50 mg L-1. The optimum condition for the studied parameters was applied for various concentrations of the dye (20–200 mg L-1) and in all the cases an efficiency of more than 96% is attainable. Adsorption isotherms were studied which were well in line with both Langmuire and Freundlich equations. The method was applied for the removal of dye from real samples of different waters such as industrial water, river water, tap water and sea water samples, in all of which dye removal was more than 94.