Investigation of Pb (II) and Cd (II) removal from aqueous solution by organic-modified xonotlite

ABSTRACT

In this work, a novel xonotlite nanocomposite was synthesised with abandoned eggshell by hydrothermal method, and organic-modified with toluene diisocyanate (TDI) for the removal of Pb(II) and Cd(II) from wastewater. The xonotlite and organic-modified xonotlite were characterised by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Brunner-Emmet-Teller (BET) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) methods. The effect of solution pH, contact time, adsorbent dose, and initial concentrations were also investigated. The organic-modified xonotlite was found to have a high loading capacity of 467.7 mg g⁻¹ for Pb(II) and 147.6 mg g⁻¹ for Cd(II). The adsorption of Pb (II) and Cd (II) was well fitted by Freundlich model and pseudo-second order model. In the effect of the competing ion, the ions like Na(I) and K(I), had little effect on the Pb(II) and Cd(II) removal efficiency. Furthermore, the organic-modified xonotlite can be reused and shown good recyclability. It was concluded that the organic-modified xonotlite is simple, fast and effective adsorbent for the removal of Pb(II) and Cd(II) in treating wastewater with outstanding adsorption capacity.

KEYWORDS:

• Xonotlite
• organic-modified xonotlite
• adsorption
• Pb(II) and Cd(II)
• wastewater

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41977147, No. 41101303), the National Natural Science Foundation of Hunan (No. 11JJ6013) and the Hunan Provincial Natural Science & Hengyang Joint fund (No. 2016JJ5017).