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Adsorption capacities of poorly crystalline Fe minerals for antimonate and arsenate removal from water: adsorption properties and effects of environmental and chemical conditions

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Abstract

Antimonate (Sb(V)) and arsenate (As(V)) pollution frequently occur in aqueous environment and can be absorbed by poorly crystalline Fe minerals (i.e., ferrihydrite). In this study, the adsorption capacity and rate of Sb(V) and As(V) from water with fresh ferrihydrite were compared by establishing adsorption isotherms and kinetics, and the effects of ferrihydrite dosage, solution pH and humic substances on Sb(V) and As(V) adsorption were also investigated. The adsorption isotherms results showed that the equilibrium and maximum adsorption capacities of Sb(V) on ferrihydrite were approximately equal to those of As(V) under different temperatures. The results of adsorption kinetics showed that the adsorption rate of Sb(V) derived from the pseudo-second-order equation was much lower than that of As(V). In addition, the adsorption capacity and rate of Sb(V) and As(V) were greatly affected by various ferrihydrite dosage and solution pHs. The presence of humic acid and fulvic acid (FA) significantly affected the adsorption process of Sb(V) due to competition adsorption, whereas the adsorption properties of As(V) were little affected by FA under this experimental conditions.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the China CPSF-CAS Joint Foundation for Excellent Postdoctoral Fellows (No. 2016LH0048), the Shandong Province Natural Science Foundation (No. ZR2016DQ08), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation funded project (No. 2016M600829), the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong SAR, China (No. 18202116), and the Dean’s Strategic Research Area Fund (No. DSRAF-6 SP1, DRF/SFRS-8), and the Internal Research Grant (No. RG 78/2015-2016R, RG 50/2017-2018R, RG 34/2017-2018R) of The Education University of Hong Kong.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Environmental and Municipal Engineering, Qingdao University of Technology, Qingdao, 266033, People’s Republic of China

    Huawei Wang, Ya-nan Wang & Yingjie Sun

  2. Xinjiang Key Laboratory of Environmental Pollution and Bioremediation, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ürümqi, 830011, People’s Republic of China

    Huawei Wang, Daoyong Zhang & Xiangliang Pan

  3. Department of Science and Environmental Studies, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, New Territories, Hong Kong

    Yiu Fai Tsang

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  1. Huawei Wang
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  2. Yiu Fai Tsang
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  3. Ya-nan Wang
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  4. Yingjie Sun
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Correspondence to Yiu Fai Tsang or Xiangliang Pan.

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Wang, H., Tsang, Y.F., Wang, Yn. et al. Adsorption capacities of poorly crystalline Fe minerals for antimonate and arsenate removal from water: adsorption properties and effects of environmental and chemical conditions. Clean Techn Environ Policy 20, 2169–2179 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-018-1552-0

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