Abstract

The effluent from various industries is the potential source of water contamination during last few decades. Thus effective methods have been adopted for the removal of toxic heavy metals from industrial effluents that show carcinogenic and mutagenic effects. The present research involves removal of Sb³⁺ that has been investigated using chitosan-montmorillonite biocomposites. The kinetics and adsorption equilibrium was determined respectively using batch adsorption model, taking into account solution pH, contact time and initial metal ion concentration. The adsorption isotherm parameters were evaluated wherein Freundlich model best represents the experimental data. The highest adsorption capacity of 48.7 mg/g of chitosan-montmorillonite beads was attained from an initial concentration of 100 g/m³ at 300 K. The equilibrium was achieved during initial phase of contact of 10 minutes only. The biosorbent show comparable high adsorption capacity for Sb³⁺ and is efficiently functional in broad range of metal ion concentration from 4 mg/m³ (4 parts per billion) to 100 g/m³ (100 parts per million) of solution. The adsorption kinetics follows chemical adsorption as the rate determining step.

The interaction forces between Sb³⁺ and adsorbent/s were determined by Fourier Transform Infrared-Attenuated Total Reflectance (FT-IR-ATR). The metal ion desorption and reusability of biosorbent/s up to three cycles was supported by 0.1 M potassium dihydrogen phosphate solution. The Scanning Electron Micrographs and X-Ray Diffractograms of the adsorbents before and after metal interaction were found to correspond to the batch adsorption studies of the metal ion.

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