Enhancing irrigation water quality efficiently with potassium feldspar-derived adsorbent: Heavy metal detoxification and nutrient augmentation.

The pollution of Pb2+ and Cd2+ in both irrigation water and soil, coupled with the scarcity of vital mineral nutrition, poses a significant hazard to the security and quality of agricultural products. An economical potassium feldspar-derived adsorbent (PFDA) was synthesized using potassium feldspar as the main raw material through ball milling-thermal activation technology to solve this problem. The synthesis process is cost-effective and the resulting adsorbent demonstrates high efficiency in removing Pb2+ and Cd2+ from water. The removal process is endothermic, spontaneous, and stochastic, and follows the quasi-second-order kinetics, intraparticle diffusion, and Langmuir model. The adsorption and elimination of Pb2+ and Cd2+ is largely dependent on monolayer chemical sorption. The maximum removal capacity of PFDA for Pb2+ and Cd2+ at room temperature is 417 and 56.3 mg·g-1, respectively, which is superior to most mineral-based adsorbents. The desorption of Pb2+/Cd2+ on PFDA is highly challenging at pH≥3, whereas PFDA and Pb2+/Cd2+ are recyclable at pH≤0.5. When Pb2+ and Cd2+ coexisted, Pb2+ was preferentially removed by PFDA. In the case of single adsorption, Pb2+ was mainly adsorbed onto PFDA as Pb2SiO4, PbSiO3·xH2O, Pb3SiO5, PbAl2O4, PbAl2SiO6, PbAl2Si2O8, Pb2SO5, and PbSO4, whereas Cd2+ was primarily adsorbed as CdSiO3, Cd2SiO4, and Cd3Al2Si3O12. After the complex adsorption, the main products were PbSiO3·xH2O, PbAl2Si2O8, Pb2SiO4, Pb4Al2Si2O11, Pb5SiO7, PbSO4, CdSiO3, and Cd3Al2Si3O12. The forms of mineral nutrients in single and complex adsorption were different. The main mechanisms by which PFDA removed Pb2+ and Cd2+ were chemical precipitation, complexation, electrostatic attraction, and ion exchange. In irrigation water, the elimination efficiencies of Pb2+ and Cd2+ by PFDA within 10 min were 96.0 % and 70.3 %, respectively, and the concentrations of K+, Si4+, Ca2+, and Mg2+ increased by 14.0 %, 12.4 %, 55.7 %, and 878 %, respectively, within 60 min. PFDA holds great potential to replace costly methods for treating heavy metal pollution and nutrient deficiency in irrigation water, offering a sustainable, cost-effective solution and paving a new way for the comprehensive utilization of potassium feldspar.