Formation of Palygorskite Clay from Treated Diatomite and its Application for the Removal of Heavy Metals from Aqueous Solution

Environmental contamination by toxic heavy metals is a serious worldwide phenomenon. Thus, their removal is a crucial issue. In this study, we found an efficient adsorbent to remove Cu2+ and Ni2+ from aqueous solution using two materials. Chemical modification was used to obtain palygorskite clay fr...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Nefzi, Houwaida, Abderrabba, Manef, Ayadi, Sameh, Labidi Bouchrika, Jalel
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2018
País:España
Institución:Universidad del País Vasco
Repositorio:Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
OAI Identifier:oai:addi.ehu.eus:10810/32305
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10810/32305
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:palygorskite clay
diatomaceous earth
heavy metals
adsorption capacity
activated palygorskite
coated sand
copper II
adsorption
ions
equilibrium
kinetics
toluene
nickel
desorption
Descripción
Sumario:Environmental contamination by toxic heavy metals is a serious worldwide phenomenon. Thus, their removal is a crucial issue. In this study, we found an efficient adsorbent to remove Cu2+ and Ni2+ from aqueous solution using two materials. Chemical modification was used to obtain palygorskite clay from diatomite. The adsorbents were characterized using X-ray florescence, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction. The effects of contact time, initial concentration, temperature and pH on the adsorption process were investigated. Our results showed that the (%) of maximum adsorption capacity of diatomite was 78.44% for Cu2+ at pH 4 and 77.3% for Ni2+ at pH 7, while the (%) of the maximum adsorption on palygorskite reached 91% for Cu2+ and 87.05% for Ni2+, in the same condition. The results indicate that the pseudo-second-order model can describe the adsorption process. Furthermore, the adsorption isotherms could be adopted by the Langmuir and the Freundlich models with good correlation coefficient (R-2). Thus, our results showed that palygorskite prepared from Tunisian diatomite is a good adsorbent for the removal of heavy metals from water.