In this work, the sawdust of vine wood (VW) was treated with sulfuric acid and used to adsorb methylene blue (MB) from aqueous solutions via a batch adsorption process. The characteristics of the adsorbent were determined by various analytical techniques such as Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Brunauer−Emmett−Teller (BET) N2 adsorption−desorption isotherms. The effects of various experimental parameters including sulfuric acid concentration, particle size of the adsorbent, pH of the solution, contact time, initial concentration, adsorbent dosage and temperature on adsorption of MB by activating sawdust were systematically investigated. The experimental results showed that the adsorption efficiency was increased with contact time and adsorbent dosage. The maximum removal efficiency was found after 180 min of solid/liquid contact with adsorbent doses of 1 g/l for sawdust. The isotherm and kinetic experimental data for MB adsorption on VW sawdust were best-fitted by Langmuir models and Pseudo-second-order, respectively.
The calculated values of the entropy (ΔS°), enthalpy (ΔH°) and Gibbs energy (ΔG°) indicated that the adsorption process was exothermic in nature. These results suggest that the activated sawdust can be employed as a low-cost and environmentally friendly adsorbent for the treatment of wastewaters containing dyes.