An electrochemical sequential injection method to investigate the adsorption of selenite on Fe(III) polyhydroxy cations intercalated vermiculite.

Abstract

A sequential injection - square wave anodic stripping voltammetry (SI-SWASV) method for determination of Se(IV) at a gold working electrode was developed to investigate the adsorption of Se(IV) onto vermiculite intercalated with Fe(III) polyhydroxy cations. The limits of detection and quantification were 0.060 and 0.20 μmol L-1, respectively (4.7 and 15.7 μg L-1). The linearity was up to 1.0 μmol L-1, and the sampling throughput was 18 analyses h-1. The proposed approach is a low-cost alternative to more expensive spectrometric methods. Adsorption onto vermiculite intercalated with Fe(III) polyhydroxy cations removed 93% of Se(IV) from a 1.0 μmol L-1 solution (250 mL) after 5 min of contact time with 625 mg of adsorbent. Adsorption isotherms (25.0 ± 0.5 °C) were fitted by the Freundlich equation resulting in 1/n = 0.51 ± 0.03 and Kf = (1.584 ± 0.002) × 103 μmol1-1/n g-1 L1/n (r2 = 0.995). Fitting by the Langmuir equation resulted in an adsorption constant of 0.026 ± 0.008 L g-1 and adsorption capacity of 47 ± 5 μmol g-1 (3.7 ± 0.4 mg g-1) (r2 = 0.97). This capacity was higher than that found for several other iron oxides, but lower than that obtained for oxide/hydroxide-based Fe(III) nanoparticles.