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Study on adsorption of ammonia nitrogen by sodium-modified kaolin at calcination temperature

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Abstract

Natural kaolin (NK) is not used as a material for removal of ammonia nitrogen in wastewater because of its low ammonia adsorption capacity. In this study, sodium-modified kaolin adsorbent (NaCK) with high ammonia nitrogen adsorption capacity was prepared by NaOH modification of calcined NK, which was developed to address this problem. The adsorption properties were evaluated by batch static adsorption test. The results showed that when the initial concentration of ammonia nitrogen was 10 mg/L, pH = 8, and dosage of adsorbent was 1 g/L, the adsorption capacity of NaCK-600 for ammonia nitrogen was the best, reaching 6.23 mg/g, which was 34.6 times higher than that of NK (0.18 mg/g). Batch static adsorption test combined with adsorption kinetics, adsorption isothermal, and characteristic data showed that NaCK prepared at different temperatures had different adsorption mechanisms. Batch static adsorption test data of NaCK-600 was in good agreement with the pseudo-second-order model and Langmuir model, and the main mechanism of its adsorption of ammonia nitrogen was the ion exchange of NH4+ and Na+ in NaCK. After the third cycle, the removal rate of NaCK-600 was still up to 76.44%, which indicates that NaCK-600 has considerable potential for removal of ammonia nitrogen in wastewater and provides a new way for the application of kaolin in removal of ammonia nitrogen.

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Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFC1903400) and Jiangxi Province Graduate Innovation Special Fund Project (XY2021-S015).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jiangxi University of Science and Technology, Ganzhou, 341000, China

    Liya Feng, Tingsheng Qiu & Chen Liu

  2. Jiangxi Province Key Laboratory of Mining and Metallurgy Environmental Pollution Control, Jiangxi University of Science and Technology, Ganzhou, 341000, China

    Tingsheng Qiu

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  1. Liya Feng
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  2. Tingsheng Qiu
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  3. Chen Liu
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Liya Feng, and all authors have commented on and revised previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Tingsheng Qiu.

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Feng, L., Qiu, T. & Liu, C. Study on adsorption of ammonia nitrogen by sodium-modified kaolin at calcination temperature. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 97063–97077 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-28874-2

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