Abstract

The purpose of this article is to establish the effect of the removal of water from the peat cellular structure, as well its use as adsorbent of textile dyes. To reach this objective, a commercial sphagnum peat form the Magallanic region was used. The original humidity of this commercial peat is 70% and its conditioning requires a drying stage. The tests were performed using a convective air dryer at 30, 60 and 80 ºC. After drying, the peat structure was analyzed by electronic microscopy to identify the conditions permitting an effective dryness without affecting the peat porous structure. Once these conditions were defined, adsorption laboratory tests were performed to evaluate the feasibility of removing acid, basic and reactive dyes from the solution. The results of the electronic microscopy show that the drying process performed at drastic conditions of temperature to reach lower levels of residual humidity, produce a damage to the porous structure of the solid, affecting the surface area of the adsorbent particles. The study of decolorization under the selected conditions demonstrate that the basic dyes present a high affinity adsorption for peat; whereas, the acid and reactive dyes present low affinity for the adsorbent.