Masoud Aziz Saberi - Mining Faculty, Shahrood University of Technology, Shahrood, Iran.
M. Kor - Mining Faculty, Shahrood University of Technology, Shahrood, Iran.
Khashayar Badii - Department of Environmental Researches, Institute for Colorants, Paints and Coatings, Tehran, Iran

In recent decades, water pollution has changed the features of aqua ecosystems of earth, such as rivers and lakes. Dyes are the most important pollutants. The wastewater of textile industries are the main sources of synthesis dyes in nature. Not only these compounds are so dangerous, but also their chemical and biological degraded products are very poisonous in nature. There are many methods to remove these pollutants from wastewater. Diatomite, as a low cost adsorbent, is an economical way to remove these pollutants, but method characterization needs a lot of experiments. In present research, the Taguchi experimental design method has been applied to optimize this removal process and decrease the number of experiments. Direct red 80 and 81 colorants were individually used to simulate the textile wastewater. The results of Taguchi method indicated that removal efficiency for these direct dyes were acceptable at pH=2 and room temperature (T=25ºC).

Adsorption, Diatomite, Dye removal, Experiment design, Taguchi method