[Adsorption and Mechanism of Arsenic by Natural Iron-containing Minerals].

Natural iron-containing minerals present in the geosphere in the form of crystalline minerals can be used as adsorption material for removal of arsenic from wastewater and remediation of arsenic-contaminated soils. In this paper, the adsorption and desorption of arsenic onto different iron-containing materials including hematite, limonite, siderite, ilmenite, magnetite, Fe2O3, Fe3O4, and Fe-Mn binary oxide (FMBO) were studied in laboratory experiments. The mechanism of arsenic adsorption was analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The results showed that arsenic adsorption is fitted by pseudo-second-order kinetics and the Langmuir isotherm model for almost all adsorbents, suggesting monolayer adsorption of arsenic onto the minerals. The sorption efficiency and capacity of arsenic by FMBO are much higher than those of other materials. Furthermore, limonite has high sorption efficiencies for both As(Ⅲ) and As(Ⅴ) among the natural iron-containing minerals, and their adsorption capacities are 3.96 mg·g-1 and 2.99 mg·g-1, respectively. The XRD results showed that natural limonite contains a large number of weak crystalline mineral components such as goethite, which can provide relatively abundant arsenic adsorption sites. Thus, limonite appears to be the most suitable natural mineral for arsenic adsorption.