Agricultural wastes can be chemically modified to improve their ion-exchange capacity in order to use in dye-removal from wastewater. Corn cob, soybean hull and sunflower stalk were used to study the dye-removal efficiency of quaternized crosslinked cellulose by the column method. Three reactive dyes (Remazol Black B, Remazol Brilliant Blue R, Remazol Brilliant Red 3BS) and three direct dyes (Best Direct Black B, Sirius Blue KCFN, Sirius Rubine KZBL) were used at a concentration of 100 mg/l and at a flow rate of 10 ml/min. The experiments revealed that quaternized crosslinked cellulose had better results in reactive dye-removal. At 90% dye-removal efficiency, the average volumes of dye taken up by quaternized crosslinked cellulose prepared from corn cob, soybean hull and sunflower stalk were 241.39, 217.42 and 266.02 mg dye/g (total average was 243.36 mg dye/g) for reactive dyes, and 63.37, 153.73 and 37.81 mg dye/g (total average was 84.95 mg dye/g) for direct dyes. The average leachability of quaternized crosslinked cellulose after dye removal determined as dye concentration were 6.93, 5.90 and 1.33 mg/l (17.59, 16.04 and 3.83 SU), respectively. The highest volume of dye taken up was 314.57 mg dye/g in Remazol Brilliant Blue R removal by quaternized crosslinked cellulose prepared from sunflower stalk.
