Metakaolin-Based Geopolymers for Targeted Adsorbents to Heavy Metal Ion Separation

Francisco J. López, Satoshi Sugita, Motohiro Tagaya, Takaomi Kobayashi

Departament of Chemestry, Universidad de Guanajuato, Guanajuato, Mexico.
Department of Materials Science and Technology, Nagaoka University of Technology, Nagaoka, Japan.
Department of Materials Science and Technology, Nagaoka University of Technology, Nagaoka, Japan Departament of Chemestry, Universidad de Guanajuato, Guanajuato, Mexico.

DOI: 10.4236/msce.2014.27002                

Abstract

Geopolymer adsorbents were prepared from silica and metakaolin in different Al and Si components and applied for removal of metal ions, Cs⁺ and Pb²⁺, from other heavy metal ions mixture. The geopolymer was optimized at Si/Al = 2 as adsorbent, targeting to Cs⁺ and Pb²⁺ separation. The binding behavior was well fitted to Langmuir model, which proved that the metakaolin-based geopolymer had multibinding to adsorb ions. The effective adsorption was also observed independent of NaCl concentration for the Cs⁺ and Pb²⁺. This meant that the ion adsorption of geopolymers occurred under non-electrostatic mechanism.

Keywords

Geopolymer, Metakaolin, Silica Fume, Metal Ions, Adsorption

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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