Abstract
The adsorption of basic dyestuffs (Basic Blue 69 and Basic Red 22) onto natural clay has been studied using a series of batch adsorption runs. The pore diffusion model (PDM) has been developed based on external mass transfer and pore diffusion to predict the performance of a batch adsorber. A computer program has been developed to generate theoretical Sherwood number-time curves and these results were adjusted to experimental Sherwood number-time curves by means of a ‘best fit’ approach. The variables of initial dye concentration and natural clay mass have been successfully correlated using a single external mass-transfer coefficient, Ks, and a single effective pore diffusion coefficient, Deff. The Ks values are 3.3 × 10−5 and 2.6 × 10−5 m/s for Basic Blue 69 and Basic Red 22, respectively. The Deff values are 7.3 × 10−10 and 9.6 × 10−10 m2/s for Basic Blue 69 and Basic Red 22, respectively.