Adsorption studies of arsenic(III) removal from water by zirconium polyacrylamide hybrid material (ZrPACM-43)

A novel hybrid material zirconium polyacrylamide (ZrPACM-43) was synthesized by mixing aqueous solution of zirconium oxychloride and mixture of acrylamide following an environmental friendly sol–gel method. The material was characterized by FTIR, XRD, TGA-DTA, and SEM-EDS. The extent of arsenic removal capacity was tested by the material by varying the solution parameters like adsorbent dose, adsorbate concentration, pH of the solution, contact time and temperature. The maximum removal efficiency of arsenic(III) was 98.22% under optimum conditions with adsorption equilibrium time of 120 min. The adsorption process followed second order kinetics and adsorption data were best fitted to linearly transformed Freundlich isotherm with correlation coefficient of R2>0.999. Adsorption capacity (qo) calculated from Langmuir isotherm was found to be 41.48 mg g−1. The thermodynamic parameter ΔH indicates an endothermic adsorption process. The regeneration study shows that the material is regenerated by 1 M alkali solution.