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Mg–Fe layered double hydroxide assembled on biochar derived from rice husk ash: facile synthesis and application in efficient removal of heavy metals

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Abstract

The pollution of toxic and persistent heavy metals commonly exist in water environment; such multi-component pollutants pose a serious threat to human beings and other organisms. Herein, to make full use of the advantages of both layered double hydroxide (LDH) and rice husk ash (RHA), a novel Mg–Fe-LDH-RHA functional material was synthesized by assembling LDH on the biochar derived from RHA and used as an adsorbent for removal of heavy metal ions including Pb2+, Cu2+, Co2+, Ni2+, Zn2+, and Cd2+. The adsorption kinetics and isotherms of heavy metal ions in a mono-component system, the adsorption capacities in mixed multi-metal ion system, and the regeneration of the adsorbent were studied in detail. The results showed that the synthesized Mg–Fe-LDH-RHA might efficiently remove the above six heavy metals in water under optimized experimental conditions. Interestingly, the removal performance toward Pb(II) showed high static distribution coefficients (Kd) of ~ 107 mL/g and maximum capacity of ~ 682 mg/g. Besides, further characterizations of the adsorbent have been conducted, and the result suggested the formation of abundant functional groups including hydroxyl, carbonyl, and carboxyl groups. The removal mechanism of the metal ions might be related to ion-exchange, surface precipitation, complexation, and hydrogen binding during the interactions between the LDH-RHA material and pollutants. Such a facile and environmentally friendly approach, efficient removal performance suggests that the LDH-RHA material thus has potential for efficient removal of heavy metals in practical application.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Science and Technology Major Project of China (Grant No. 2017ZX07201005).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai, 200092, China

    Jianan Yu, Zhiliang Zhu & Hua Zhang

  2. Shanghai Institute of Pollution Control and Ecological Security, Shanghai, 200092, People’s Republic of China

    Jianan Yu, Zhiliang Zhu, Hua Zhang, Yanling Qiu & Daqiang Yin

  3. Key Laboratory of Yangtze River Water Environment, Ministry of Education, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, China

    Yanling Qiu & Daqiang Yin

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  1. Jianan Yu
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  2. Zhiliang Zhu
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  3. Hua Zhang
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  4. Yanling Qiu
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  5. Daqiang Yin
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Correspondence to Zhiliang Zhu.

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Responsible editor: Tito Roberto Cadaval Jr

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Yu, J., Zhu, Z., Zhang, H. et al. Mg–Fe layered double hydroxide assembled on biochar derived from rice husk ash: facile synthesis and application in efficient removal of heavy metals. Environ Sci Pollut Res 25, 24293–24304 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-2500-6

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