Phosphonium grafted styrene–divinylbenzene resins impregnated with iron(III) and crown ethers for arsenic removal

Abstract

Abstract In the present work a polymer with phosphonium pendant groups impregnated with crown ether (dibenzo-18-crown-6) and loaded with iron ions was investigated for arsenic removal through adsorption from aqueous solutions. The impregnated polymer was loaded with iron ions due to the high affinity of arsenic to it. The characterization of the surface modification of the obtained new adsorbent material was performed on the basis of energy dispersive X-ray analysis; scanning electron microscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The arsenic adsorption was investigated, including effect of pH, arsenic initial concentration, the shaking time and temperature. The effect of the pH was examined over the range 2–11. The adsorption of As(V) increases with pH increasing reaching a maximum at pH higher than 8. Equilibrium, kinetic and thermodynamic studies were carried out to study the adsorption performance of the obtained material in the removal process of arsenic from aqueous solutions. For the studied materials the equilibrium data closely fitted Langmuir model and was achieved a maximum adsorption capacity of 32.6 μg As(V)/g of material. The pseudo-second order kinetic model is suitable for describing the adsorption system. The obtained results show that the studied adsorbent can be used with efficiency in the arsenic removal from underground water even from low influent arsenic concentration solutions.