An active carbon derived from the barks of Ficus racemosa plant has been developed as bio-adsorbent in the removal of Coomassie brilliant blue R-250 dye from the effluents of Industries based on the dyes. The sorption properties have been explored towards the said dye with respect to various physicochemical parameters such as pH, time of contact, adsorbent dosage, temperature and initial concentration of the dye and the conditions have been optimized for the maximum removal of the dye. The adsorption process is found to be maximum at low pH values: 2- 4. The co-ions generally found in natural waters have not interfered. The adsorption process has been analyzed using Langmuir and the Freundlich isotherms and the latter model has been found to be better fit for the observed data indicating the heterogeneous and multilayer nature of the adsorption process. The Kinetics of adsorption is found to follow pseudo second-order model. The FTIR data before and after the adsorption of the dye indicate the binding of the dye to the surface of the adsorbent. The thermodynamic parameters indicate the spontaneous and endothermic nature of the adsorption. The maximum dye adsorbed on to ACFR is found to be 65.0 mg/g. The methodologies developed are successfully applied to real industrial water samples collected from the effluents of dyeing industries.
