Ammonium sulfide-assisted hydrothermal activation of palygorskite for enhanced adsorption of methyl violet

Herein,palygorskite（PAL）was activated via a simple hydrothermal process in the presence of ammonium sulfide,and the effects of activation on the microstructure,physico-chemical feature and adsorption behaviors of PAL were intensively investigated.The hydrothermal process evidently improved the dispersion of PAL crystal bundles,increased surface negative charges and built more active –Si–O-groups served as the new＂adsorption sites＂.The adsorption property of the activated PAL for Methyl Violet（MV）was systematically investigated by optimizing the adsorption variables,including p H,ionic strength,contact time and initial MV concentration.The activated PAL exhibited a superior adsorption capability to the raw PAL for the removal of MV（from 156.05 to 218.11 mg/g）.The kinetics for MV adsorption followed pseudo second-order kinetic models,while the isotherm and thermodynamics results showed that the adsorption pattern well followed the Langmuir model.The structure analysis of PAL before and after adsorption demonstrated that electrostatic interaction and chemical association of –X–O-are the prominent driving forces for the adsorption process.

From illite/smectite clay to mesoporous silicate adsorbent for efficient removal of chlortetracycline from water

A series of mesoporous silicate adsorbents with superior adsorption performance for hazardous chlortetracycline（CTC） were sucessfully prepared via a facile one-pot hydrothermal reaction using low-cost illite/smectite（IS） clay,sodium silicate and magnesium sulfate as the starting materials.In this process,IS clay was ＂teared up＂ and then ＂rebuilt＂ as new porous silicate adsorbent with high specific surface area of 363.52 m^2/g（about 8.7 folds higher than that of IS clay） and very negative Zeta potential（- 34.5 mV）.The inert Si- O- Si（Mg,Al） bonds in crystal framework of IS were broken to form Si（Al）- O^- groups with good adsorption activity,which greatly increased the adsorption sites served for holding much CTC molecules.Systematic evaluation on adsorption properties reveals the optimal silicate adsorbent can adsorb 408.81 mg/g of CTC（only 159.7 mg/g for raw IS clay） and remove 99.3%（only 46.5%for raw IS clay） of CTC from 100 mg/L initial solution（pH 3.51;adsorption temperature 30℃;adsorbent dosage,3 g/L）.The adsorption behaviors of CTC onto the adsorbent follows the Langmuir isotherm model,Temkin equation and pseudo second-order kinetic model.The mesopore adsorption,electrostatic attraction and chemical association mainly contribute to the enhanced adsorption properties.As a whole,the high-efficient silicate adsorbent could be candidates to remove CTC from the wastewater with high amounts of CTC.