Heavy metal pollution has posed great threats to the ecological environment, food security and human health. To date, various approaches have been explored, among which mineralization of heavy metals via layered double hydroxides (LDHs) are reported as a promising way to solve the addressed issue. In line with this, the current study attempts to the fabrication of two typical MgFe-LDHs containing different intercalated anions (denoted as MgFe-CO3 and MgFe-NO3) for mineralization of Cd2+. In the experiments, the as-prepared MgFe-NO3 exhibited a high maximum adsorption capacity of 444.44 mg/g, which was 2.82 times higher than that of the contrast sample MgFe-CO3 (157.48 mg/g). Such difference in adsorption capacity can be attributed to the different mineralization mechanism: For MgFe-NO3, the mineralization process was dominated by isomorphous substitution and the CdFe-LDH was the main product, while for MgFe-CO3, the formation of CdCO3 can be observed. This work paves a way in treating Cd2+ by MgFe-NO3 through super-stable mineralization and its further application in the removal of co-existent Cd2+ and AsO43- ions can be expected.
Read full abstract