Say Goodbye Textile Dyes: How Flowers Can Purify Polluted Water

By: Diana Elisa Nuno

Image of the model pollutant, Methylene Blue (Left), and flower collected, Tagetes Erecta (Right).                              

(Source: The Blue Bottle Chemistry Demonstration by Anne Marie Helmenstine, https://www.thoughtco.com/blue-bottle-chemistry-demonstration-604260, Tagetes by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagetes.)

Flowers, often recognized as a gift of nature with vibrant colors and sweet aromas are being utilized for something remarkable: reducing textile dyes from water. Flowers such as the the African Marigold (Tagetes erecta), are used in many religious celebrations in India. These flowers are used for celebrations all year round, creating an immense amount of flower waste that is difficult to dispose of and often ends up in rivers or landfills, reducing water quality.

Additionally, contaminants created by colorants, such as methylene blue are known to pollute water. While these dyes can be carcinogenic, they are also known to deplete water quality for ecosystems and human consumption. With these issues, the researchers of this article collected floral waste from religious temples and created an activated charcoal to absorb the model pollutant, methylene blue. While dried flowers have low absorption rates of pollutants, the method of pyrolysis was utilized, in which the floral waste was heated without the presence of oxygen, producing a biochar to absorb pollutants and purify water. The results of this study displayed that the biochar created by flower waste through direct pyrolysis has the potential to reduce harmful waste and chemicals in water, making it a sustainable option to prevent further degradation of freshwater ecosystems. 

Overall, this advances environmental sustainability by simultaneously managing two environmental sustainability issues: the pollution of colorants contaminating water and preventing floral waste from impacting ecosystems.

Original Article: 

Agarwal S, Rana N, Bhardwaj P, Tiwari GN, Yadav AK, Garg MC, Mathur A, Tripathi A. 

 2024. Removal of methylene blue azo dye from aqueous solution using bioabsorbent developed from floral waste. J. Environ. Biol.[accessed 2024 September 17];  45 (1): 54-61. http://doi.org/10.22438/jeb/45/1/MRN-5121 .