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Modelling the adsorption of mercury onto natural and aluminium pillared clays

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Abstract

Introduction

The removal of heavy metals by natural adsorbent has become one of the most attractive solutions for environmental remediation. Natural clay collected from the Late Cretaceous Aleg formation, Tunisia was used as a natural adsorbent for the removal of Hg(II) in aqueous system.

Methods

Physicochemical characterization of the adsorbent was carried out with the aid of various techniques, including chemical analysis, X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared and scanning electron micrograph. Batch sorption technique was selected as an appropriate technique in the current study. Method parameters, including pH, temperature, initial metal concentration and contact time, were varied in order to quantitatively evaluate their effects on Hg(II) adsorption onto the original and pillared clay samples. Adsorption kinetic was studied by fitting the experimental results to the pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order kinetic models. The adsorption data were also simulated with Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin isotherms.

Results

Results showed that the natural clay samples are mainly composed of silica, alumina, iron, calcium and magnesium oxides. The sorbents are mainly mesoporous materials with specific surface area of <250 m2 g−1. From the adsorption of Hg(II) studies, experimental data demonstrated a high degree of fitness to the pseudo-second-order kinetics with an equilibration time of 240 min. The equilibrium data showed the best model fit to Langmuir model with the maximum adsorption capacities of 9.70 and 49.75 mg g−1 for the original and aluminium pillared clays, respectively. The maximum adsorption of Hg(II) on the aluminium pillared clay was observed to occur at pH 3.2. The calculated thermodynamic parameters (∆G°, ∆H° and ∆S°) showed an exothermic adsorption process. The entropy values varied between 60.77 and 117.59 J mol−1 K−1, and those of enthalpy ranged from 16.31 to 30.77 kJ mol−1. The equilibrium parameter (R L) indicated that the adsorption of Hg(II) on Tunisian smectitic clays was favourable under the experimental conditions of this study.

Conclusion

The clay of the Aleg formation, Tunisia was found to be an efficient adsorbent for Hg(II) removal in aqueous systems.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Mr. Nidhal Baccar, Technician in the Biotechnology Research Center of Sfax, for his help in the analysis of our samples by atomic absorption spectrometer and his assistance in the laboratory work. The authors would like to extend their thanks to Professor Vinod Kumar Gupta and his team for their prompt reviews and the constructive comments and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire “Eau, Energie et Environnement” (LR3E), code: AD-10-02, Université de Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia

    Mabrouk Eloussaief & Mourad Benzina

  2. Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba, 1-1-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba, 305-8572, Japan

    Ali Sdiri

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  1. Mabrouk Eloussaief
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  2. Ali Sdiri
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  3. Mourad Benzina
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Correspondence to Mabrouk Eloussaief.

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Responsible editor: Vinod Kumar Gupta

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Eloussaief, M., Sdiri, A. & Benzina, M. Modelling the adsorption of mercury onto natural and aluminium pillared clays. Environ Sci Pollut Res 20, 469–479 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-012-0874-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-012-0874-4

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