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Zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 for efficient adsorption and removal of Cr(VI) ions from aqueous solution

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Abstract

Heavy metals are emerging toxic pollutants in which the development of advanced materials for their efficient adsorption and separation is thus of great significance in environmental sciences point of view. In this study, one of the zinc-based zeolitic imidazolate framework materials, known as ZIF-8, has been synthesized and used for chromium(VI) contaminant removal from water for the first time. The as-synthesized ZIF-8 adsorbent was characterized with different methodologies such as powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermo-gravimetric analysis, FT-IR, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and UV–Vis spectra of solid state. Various factors affecting removal percentage (efficiency) are experimentally investigated including pH of solution, adsorbent dosage, contact time and initial concentration of Cr(VI) to achieve the optimal condition. The obtained results indicate that the ZIF-8 shows good performance for the Cr(VI) removal from aqueous solution so that 60 min mixing of 2 g of ZIF-8 adsorbent with the 2.5 ppm of Cr(VI) solution in a neutral environment will result in the highest separation efficiency around 70%. The time needed to reach the equilibrium (maximum separation efficiency) is only 60 min for a concentration of 5 mg L−1. Structure stability in the presence of water is also carefully examined by XRD determination of ZIF-8 under different contact times in aqueous solution, which suggests that the structure is going to be destructed after 60 min immersed in solution. Electrostatic interaction of Cr(VI) anions by positively charged ZIF-8 is responsible for Cr(VI) adsorption and separation. Moreover, equilibrium adsorption study reveals that the Cr(VI) removal process using ZIF-8 nicely fits the Langmuir and Toth isotherm models which mean the adsorbent has low heterogeneous surface with different distributions of adsorption energies during Cr(VI) adsorption. Equilibrium adsorption capacity is observed around 0.25 for 20 mg L−1 of initial Cr(VI) solutions.

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Notes

  1. It should be noted that, although the stability of MOFs in the presence of water is one of the most important challenges to apply MOFs in practical applications, the application of ZIF-8 is increasing in many industries due to its simple synthesis and higher stability in comparison with the other MOFs. MOF stability in aqueous solutions can be found in more details elsewhere (Ayati et al. 2016).

  2. As it would be explained in the “Effect of solution pH” section, the adopted pH for all experiments is equal to 7 (neutral environment).

  3. This value is close to the theoretical value obtained from crystallographic data which is about 11.6 Å (Park et al. 2006).

  4. It should be noted that this time was chosen as a function of the adsorption kinetics and the solid matrix destruction that will be explained in next sections.

  5. Maximum value was determined by the immersion time in the solution in which the destruction process of the adsorbent matrix begins.

  6. Also known as Langmuir–Freundlich model.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Quchan University of Advanced Technology, Quchan, Iran

    Mahdi Niknam Shahrak, Mahboube Ghahramaninezhad & Mohsen Eydifarash

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  1. Mahdi Niknam Shahrak
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  2. Mahboube Ghahramaninezhad
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  3. Mohsen Eydifarash
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Correspondence to Mahdi Niknam Shahrak.

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Responsible editor: Guilherme L. Dotto

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Niknam Shahrak, M., Ghahramaninezhad, M. & Eydifarash, M. Zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 for efficient adsorption and removal of Cr(VI) ions from aqueous solution. Environ Sci Pollut Res 24, 9624–9634 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-8577-5

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