Photocatalytic and adsorption studies on the removal of dye Congo red from wastewater

Many industries such as paper, food, cosmetics, textiles etc. use dye in order to colour their products. The presence of these dyes in water even at very low concentration is highly visible and undesirable. Colour is the first contaminant to be recognised. Photocatalytic technique and adsorption methods offer a good potential to remove colour from wastewater. In the present paper these two methods were employed for removal of Congo red and both the techniques were found to be very useful and cost effective for a better removal of dye and the results were compared. The operating variables such as adsorbent dose, adsorbate concentration, pH etc were optimised.