Direct dyes are still widely used for coloring a variety of materials due to their ease of use and the wide range of colors available at a moderate cost of production. In the aquatic environment, some direct dyes, especially the azo type and their biotransformation products, are toxic, carcinogenic and mutagenic. Hence the need for their careful removal from industrial effluents. It was proposed adsorptive retention of C.I. Direct Red 23 (DR23), C.I. Direct Orange 26 (DO26) and C.I. Direct Black 22 (DB22) from effluents using anion exchange resin of tertiary amine functionalities Amberlyst A21 (A21). Applying the Langmuir isotherm model, the monolayer capacities were calculated as 285.6 mg/g for DO26 and 271.1 mg/g for DO23. The Freundlich isotherm model seems to be the better one for the description of DB22 uptake by A21, and the isotherm constant was found to be 0.609 mg1-1/n L1/n/g. The kinetic parameters revealed that the pseudo-second-order model could be used for the description of experimental data rather than the pseudo-first-order model or intraparticle diffusion model. The dye adsorption decreased in the presence of anionic and non-ionic surfactants, while their uptake was enhanced in the presence of Na2SO4 and Na2CO3. Regeneration of the A21 resin was difficult; a slight increase in its efficiency was observed using 1M HCl, 1 M NaOH and 1 M NaCl solutions in 50% v/v methanol.
Keywords: adsorption; anion exchanger; direct black 22; direct dyes; direct orange 26; direct red 23; polystyrene resin; textile effluents.