Adsorption and removal of As(V) and As(III) using Zr-loaded lysine diacetic acid chelating resin

An adsorption process for the removal of As(V) and As(III) was evaluated under various conditions using zirconium(IV) loaded chelating resin (Zr-LDA) with lysine-Nα, Nα diacetic acid functional groups. Arsenate ions strongly adsorbed in the pH range from 2 to 5, while arsenite was adsorbed between pH 7 and 10.5. The sorption mechanism is an additional complexation between arsenate or arsenite and Zr complex of LDA. Adsorption isotherm data could be well interpreted by Langmuir equation for As(V) at pH 4 and As(III) at pH 9 with a binding constant 227.93 and 270.47 dm3 mol−1 and capacity constant 0.656 and 1.1843 mmol g−1, respectively. Regeneration of the resin was carried out for As(V) using 1 M NaOH. Six adsorption/desorption cycles were performed without significant decrease in the uptake performance. Column adsorption studies showed that the adsorption of As(V) is more favorable compared to As(III), due to the faster kinetics of As(V) compared to As(III). Influence of the coexisting ions on the adsorption of As(V) and As(III) was studied. The applicability of the method for practical water samples was studied.