Methylene Blue (MB) has been found to be one of the most common dyes used in the industries. Adsorption process using Activated Carbon (AC) has been proven to be able to remove MB effectively but the treatment cost using the adsorbent is considered expensive due to its high energy cost. Sugarcane Bagasse (SGB) is an agricultural by-product and abundantly available material in many developing countries. FTIR and XRD were used to confirm the existence of ligno-cellulose content of SGB after experiencing various chemical treatments. SGB had 5 -40 folds higher MB removal capability than commercial activated carbon, depending on the pH of water medium and the type of SGB. SGB showed a much better performance in adsorbing MB in alkaline environment than in acidic environment. Langmuir adsorption isotherm model was able to estimate the removal capacity of non-chemical treated SGB (NSGB) and CaCl2 treated SGB (CSGB) at 84.7458 mg/g and 35.2113 mg/g respectively. An extremely higher MB removal capacity was found for BSGB due to the complexity of the surface site after chemical treatment. NaOH treated SGB (BSGB) with low lignin residue content was the most favourable adsorbent for MB adsorption.

Among the contaminants plaguing our waters today, oil remains one of the most pervasive and challenging contaminant to remove. Oil pollution occurs not only through factory discharge, but also by accident spills from the fuel of the vehicle or the transportation of oil. Sugarcane bagasse (SB) is an abundant agricultural by-product containing almost half of cellulose and one quarter of lignin. After chemical treatments SB can be modified their hydrophobicity leading to improve its oil adsorptive properties. In a column experiment containing 1 g of SB, oil was able to be adsorbed from oil and water mixture by, from the highest to the lowest uptake, AASB, ASSB, NSB, SSB and BSB with the average oil adsorption capacity of 13.0 mL/g, 11.25 mL/g, 10.50 mL/g, 9.0 mL/g and 8.75 mL/g respectively. The results were concurrently meeting the result of material characterisation using FTIR, where acetic acid treated SB (AASB) consists of high lignin leading to high hydrophobicity. On the other hand, BSB showed the lowest oil adsorption capacity and more hydrophilic due to the lowest amount of lignin present in SB. The result showed a potential use of natural material of SBs with high lignin content to tackle oil spill in water environment.