Noor Afifah Husna Md Hussain et al., International Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering Research, 8(1.1), 2020, 90 - 96 90 Sorption of Methylene Blue onto Sugarcane Bagasse: A Column Study Noor Afifah Husna Md Hussain 1 , Jurina Jaafar 2 , Shariff Che Ibrahim 3 ,AminuddinMohd Baki 4 , Zulhafizal Othman 5 ,Suzana Ramli 6 ,Wardah Tahir 7 1 Faculty of Civil Engineering, UniversitiTeknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Selangor Malaysia 2 Faculty of Civil Engineering, UniversitiTeknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Selangor Malaysia, jurina@uitm.edu.my 3 Faculty of Applied Science, UniversitiTeknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Selangor Malaysia, sha88@uitm.edu.my 4 Envirab Services ,P.O.Box 7866, GPO Shah Alam , Selangor Malaysia 5 Faculty of Civil Engineering, UniversitiTeknologi MARA Pahang Banch,Jengka Campus, Pahang Malaysia, zulhafizal445@uitm.edu.my 6 Faculty of Civil Engineering, UniversitiTeknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Selangor Malaysia, suzana799@uitm.edu.my 7 Faculty of Civil Engineering, UniversitiTeknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Selangor Malaysia, warda053@uitm.edu.my ABSTRACT Methylene blue (MB) is a cationic dye that consists of complex organic molecular which is hard to biodegrade and involves several processes to remove as it is resisted to any detergents. MB is one of the pollutants found in wastewater and in natural stream. The undesirable color has prevented the sunlight pass through the surface of a stream. This has led to eutrophication that harmful to the aquatic life. This paper presents the sorption of MB onto the sugarcane bagasse . In this study, the locally accessible cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin-rich agricultural by-product sugarcane bagasse (SB) for the elimination of dye from aqueous solution. The SB is found to be an efficient media for the removal of dye from wastewater. In this study, the column with 1.5 cm diameter, different bed depths at 3, 5 and 7 cm has proven can treat 160, 300 and 400 ml of wastewater; with MB concentration of 50 mg/l with the column flow rate at 2.5 ml/min. The adsorption bed exhausted within a very short with (~1 h) after the breakthrough occurred. This indicated that the adsorption zone is almost saturated at the time of exhaustion. The effect of flow rate from the column study is also studied at different flow rate at 1.5, 2.5 and 3.5 ml/min and to treat 665, 300 and 250 ml wastewater respectively with MB concentration of 50 mg/l and bed depth maintained at 5 cm. Maximum adsorption of SB is at the highest bed depth and the lowest flow rate in the bed depth and flow rate study respectively. The plotted breakthrough curves obtained from experimental data issimilar to the typical breakthrough curve. The results obtained has been applied to Thomas and Yoon-Nelson model, which best fitted with R 2 value in range 0.95-1.00 and the time taken for breakthrough is similarly close to model prediction value. The results indicated that SB is an ideal alternative for dye removal from wastewater. Key words : Methylene Blue, adsorption, sugarcane bagasse, fixed- bed column, breakthrough curve, Thomas and Yoon-Nelson models. 1. INTRODUCTION Nowadays, the industrialization and urbanization has been rapidly growth throughout time. This matter is slowly depleting the important of water which they are susceptible to contaminants from effluent discharge from numerous industrial activities. The disposal of liquid dyes effluent from various industries have received special attention by environmentalists. Untreated or partially treated waste waters and industrial effluent discharged in natural ecosystems cause a serious problem to the ecosystem. Liquid dyes from textile and dyestuff industries areintractable. This is because dyes have a synthetic and complex aromatic molecular structure, which makes the structure more stable and difficult to biodegrade [1]. Besides having possible harmful effects, dying materials in water are aesthetically unpleasant. The dyes used in the textile industries include several structure varieties such as acidic, reactive, basic, disperse, azo, diazo, anthraquinone based and metal complex dyes [2]. In the present study, methylene blue (MB) a basic dye is selected as a model compound in order to evaluate the capacity of the sugarcane bagasse (SB) for the removal of MB from solutions. Methylene blue (MB), which is the most common among all other dyes of its category, is generally used for dyeing cotton and silk. Methylene blue is a moderate hazardous substance and can cause some harmful effects. Acute exposure to methylene blue can cause heart rate increase, vomiting, shock, Heinz body formation, cyanosis, jaundice, quadriplegia, and tissue necrosis in humans [3]. The dye removal from industrial effluents usedthe methods called adsorption, chemical coagulation, flocculation, precipitation, chemical oxidation, froth floatation, ozonation, reverse osmosis and biological techniques [4]. Adsorption has been found to be superior to other techniques for water re-use in terms of initial cost, flexibility and simplicity of design, more simplified operation and insensitivity to toxic pollutants. Due to its effectiveness and versatility, activated carbon as adsorbent is widely employed in water and wastewater treatment. However, the operating cost is high. This has been preliminary stage for manystudies to identified for more economic adsorbents [5]. One of the compelling techniques to eliminate organic impurity and inorganic in drainage system is by the process of adsorption [6]. The process of molecular tie onto the surface ISSN 2347 - 3983 Volume 8. No. 1.1, 2020 International Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering Research Available Online at http://www.warse.org/IJETER/static/pdf/file/ijeter1481.12020.pdf https://doi.org/10.30534/ijeter/2020/1481.12020