Mechanism and kinetics of dye desorption from dye-loaded carbon (XC-72) with alcohol-water system as desorbent

In this paper, alcohol (methanol, ethanol, n-propanol)-water system was used as solution for the desorption of Acid Orange 7 (AO7), Ponceau 2R and Rhodamine B (RhB) from dye-loaded carbon (XC-72). Excellent degradation efficiency was obtained (desorption efficiency reaches 77.35%, 85.60%, 96.86% for Ponceau 2R, AO7 and Rhodamine B, respectively) and it was significantly influenced by alcohol content and the length of carbon chain in alcohol (hydrophobicity). In addition, desorption kinetics was fitted by a second-order desorption model, and the desorbed quantity at equilibrium (q_e) and rate constant (k_d) were calculated, respectively.