Application of polyaniline nanolayer composite for removal of tartrazine dye from aqueous solutions

In this research, polyaniline was synthesized chemically onto the surface of sawdust as a thin layer (termed as PAni/SD) and was then used for removal of tartrazine dye (a typical anionic azo dye) from aqueous solutions. Ammonium peroxodisulphate was used as chemical oxidant for polymerization of polyaniline directly on the surface of sawdust. The procedure involves sorption experiments were performed on both batch and column systems. The effects of some important parameters such as pH, initial concentration, sorbent dosage, exposure time and temperature on uptake of tartrazine dye were investigated. Adsorption studies have shown that pH of the tartrazine solution has influence on the dye removal capacity of PAni/SD. It was found that effective dye removal is occurred under neutral or acidic conditions. The treatments of the data were carried out using both Freundlich and Langmuir adsorption isotherms. Sorption/desorption studies showed that PAni/SD was fast, simple, inexpensive, highly efficient and potential re-usable adsorbent to remove tartrazine from aqueous solutions. Based on our kinetics and thermodynamic studies, it was found that sorption process was endothermic (ΔH > 0) and the experimental data fitted very well with pseudo second-order kinetic model.