Simple spectrophotometric determination of reactive dyes after preconcentration using activated carbon

Abstract EN

The extraction efficiency of activated carbon for reactive dyes (Leafed Brilliant Blue E-4BA and Leafed Brilliant Red E-4BA) was investigated under different experimental factors including: initial dye concentration, carbon mass, pH, ionic strength and agitation time.

The equilibrium time was relatively fast and was achieved within 40 min.

The distribution coefficients (Kd) were 50.6 and 24.3 dm3 g-1 for blue and red dye; respectively.

For comparison purposes, multiwalled nanotube activated carbon was tested and showed a high extraction power for reactive dyes; the Kd values were 203.0 and 66.2 dm3 g-1 for blue and red dye; respectively.

The employed analytical method for dyes analysis was accurate and sensitive, Beer’s plots showed good correlation in the range 0.5-15.0 mg L-1 for reactive dyes.

A simple solid-phase extraction procedure based on activated and nanotube activated carbons for detection of 30-40 ng L-1 levels of reactive dyes is presented.

The detection limits of the proposed method are 20 and 30 ng L-1 for red and blue dye; respectively.