Investigation on adsorption capacity of TiO2-P25 nanoparticles in the removal of a mono-azo dye from aqueous solution: A comprehensive isotherm analysis

In this work TiO2-P25 nanoparticles with high surface area have been used as adsorbent for the removal of C.I Acid Red 27 (AR27), as an organic contaminant from aqueous solution. Characteristics of phases and crystallite size of TiO2-P25 nanoparticles were achieved from XRD and the surface area and pore size distribution were obtained from BET and BJH techniques. TiO2-P25 nanoparticles with almost 80% anatase and 20% rutile phases, the average crystallite size of 18 nm, have specific surface area of 56.82 m2 g-1. The effect of various parameters like initial AR27 concentration, pH, contact time and adsorbent dosage has been carried out in order to find desired adsorption conditions. The desired pH for adsorption of AR27 onto TiO2-P25 nanoparticles was 3. The equilibrium data were analyzed with various 2-, 3- and 4-parameter isotherm models. Equilibrium data fitted very well by the 4-parameter Fritz-Schluender model. Results of adsorption kinetics study indicated that the pseudo-second order kinetics provided the best fit with correlation coefficients close to unity.