Investigation on the capability of Silkworm Pupa as a Natural Adsorbent for Removal of Dyes from Textile Effluent

Recently, use of naturally-occurring low-cost and harmless material for removal of trace contaminants from colored wastewater has attracted extensive attention. In this study, silkworm pupa has been used as a basic dye adsorbent. Adsorption capacity and isotherms have been assessed. Results show that adsorption isotherms can be expressed well by Langmuir equation. The effects of parameters such as pH, temperature, agitation time and speed on the adsorption efficiency were investigated. It was found that among those factors the pH is the most pronounced one. Also the adsorption capacity of pupa towards the various cationic dyes is changed as follows: basic blue >basic yellow >basic red.