Abstract
The present study addresses the removal of cadmium ions (Cd(II)) from aqueous solutions at a pH of 7.5 using zeolite-A activated by exposure to oxygen plasma. The activation process was performed over a wide range of plasma powers (10, 20, 30, and 40 W) and exposure times (30 to 360 s). Oxygen plasma cannot chemically modify zeolite to a considerable extent, but it can clean the surface, open blocked pores, and induce the formation of additional OH groups via exposure to humidity in ambient air. Therefore, Cd$^{+2}$ ion removal is increased by approximately 10% with the plasma treatments. Infrared-attenuated total reflectance spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and energy dispersive spectroscopy were applied to analyze the changes in the surface structure and properties of the samples.
Highlights
The development of chemical industries has affected the earth over the past several centuries, and some of the effects are negative; for example, water resources have been contaminated by toxic heavy metal residues, such as Pb +2, Cu +2, Cd +2, and Zn +2,1,2 from different industrial activities
The removal efficiency, i.e. the quantity of cadmium ions adsorbed on the zeolite-A surface, rapidly increased from 68.4% to 71% as the plasma power used to activate the zeolite increased (Figure 1b)
The obtained zeolite material was used as a sorbent to remove Cd +2 ions from wastewater as a model for removing toxic heavy metals from aqueous solutions
Summary
The development of chemical industries has affected the earth over the past several centuries, and some of the effects are negative; for example, water resources have been contaminated by toxic heavy metal residues, such as Pb +2 , Cu +2 , Cd +2 , and Zn +2,1,2 from different industrial activities. 3 Cadmium (Cd +2) is one of the most dangerous elements and is one of the main pollutants in ecosystems, especially in water resources. Several chemical and physical processes have been used to remove toxic metals from water, including coagulation, precipitation, chemical oxidation, ion exchange, membrane separation, electrochemical treatment, and adsorption techniques Among these methods, adsorption is an effective removal process that is straightforward. Crystalline microporous materials have continued to have an increasing role in applications to address global issues, such as environmental standards for pollution, the depletion of fossil energy resources, and increasing energy consumption. The interest in such materials is due to their unique properties. The interest in preparing zeolite-like materials with additional pores is focused on traditional applications and related emerging applications in medical, electronic, and optical fields
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