An investigation on the behaviors of thorium(IV) adsorption onto chrysotile nanotubes

Prepared chrysotile nanotubes (ChNTs) were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), N2 adsorption
• desorption, X-ray photoelectron spectrometer (XPS) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). ChNTs were employed to investigate the influence of various experimental parameters on thorium adsorption. Some isotherm and kinetic models were applied to analyze the experimental data among which the Langmuir and pseudo-second-order models were better than others. The pH and ionic strength results indicated that adsorption of Th(IV) on ChNTs was strongly affected by pH values and ionic strength. The possible adsorption mechanism was studied by FTIR and XPS techniques. It was found that both electrostatic interaction and surface complexation mechanisms played important roles in adsorption process.