Adsorption of a cationic dye from aqueous solution using Turkish lignite: Kinetic, isotherm, thermodynamic studies and neural network modeling

The adsorption ability of Turkish lignite as a cheap and abundant material for removal of methylene blue was investigated. The depending of adsorption capacity on contact time, initial dye concentration, amount of adsorbent, mixing rate, pH and temperature was studied. An artificial neural network was used to model the adsorption process. BET, SEM and FT-IR analysis before and after adsorption were performed. The adsorption kinetic, thermodynamic and isotherm were also investigated. The rate of adsorption was shown the best fit with the pseudo-second order model. The values of thermodynamic parameters indicated that the dye adsorption on the lignite was endothermic.