Competitive adsorption of Direct Yellow 12 and Reactive Orange 12 on ZnS:Mn nanoparticles loaded on activated carbon as novel adsorbent

A novel adsorbent (ZnS:Mn nanoparticles loaded on activated carbon) was made. The competitive adsorption of Direct Yellow 12 (DY12) and Reactive Orange 12 (RO12) dyes in binary mixture onto this adsorbent was studied. DY12 and RO12 with severe spectra overlapping were chosen and analyzed simultaneously with high accuracy by first order derivative spectrophotometric method in binary solutions. The effect of multi-solute systems on the adsorption capacity was investigated. Because of the specific characteristics of ZnS:Mn-NP-AC was found to be efficient for the removal of the dyes studied. The adsorption capacities were investigated and described by the mono- and multi-component Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models for both single and binary dye solutions. The isotherm constants for DY12 and RO12 were calculated. For single solution of DY12 and RO12 dyes, the adsorption capacities of the applied adsorbent were found to be 90.05 mg/g and 94.52 mg/g, respectively. Equilibrium uptake amounts of DY12 and RO12 in binary solution onto the applied adsorbent were found to be considerably decreasing with increasing the concentrations of the other dye. A better agreement between the adsorption equilibrium data and mono-component Langmuir isotherm model was found. However, at concentrations within moderate ranges, the extended Freundlich isotherm model satisfactorily predicted multi-component adsorption equilibrium data. An endothermic and a spontaneous nature for the adsorption of the dyes studied were shown from thermodynamic parameters.