Abstract
Deliberate contamination with pesticides is a potential risk to water security, due to the availability of these contaminants and the fact that they do not need special expertise to handle or apply. Adsorption of the herbicide paraquat from an aqueous solution to suspended particles of kaolin and kaolin/hematite mixture was investigated by kinetic and equilibrium assays, taking into consideration several parameters such as initial pH, sorbent dosage and agitation speed. The results showed that the adsorption process is quite fast, reaching an 18% reduction in paraquat concentration in a very short period of time. The addition of hematite particles to kaolin suspension had no apparent effect on the maximum amount of paraquat adsorbed. Kinetic parameters were determined by fitting the pseudo-second order model to the experimental data (correlation coefficients close to 1). Isotherm studies indicate an inhibitory effect, promoted by hematite particles, that was not detected in the adsorption assays. Equilibrium data was best adjusted using the Langmuir model which yielded higher correlation coefficient values and smaller normalized standard deviations.
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