Fabrication of zirconium-pillared montmorillonite porous ceramic as adsorbents for Cr3+ removal and recycling

A novel zirconium-pillared montmorillonite (Zr-Mt) porous ceramic (P-ZMt) for Cr3+ removal was developed by gelcasting. P-ZMt was characterized by XRD, SEM, XPS, TEM, BET. The influence of pH value, contact time, temperature and initial concentration on the adsorption efficiency was investigated. The results revealed that the P-ZMt has a high removal efficiency of Cr3+ over a broad range of pH value. The pseudo-second-order kinetic model fitted our acquired Cr3+ adsorption data best, in comparison with the pseudo-first-order kinetic model. The Langmuir model was applied to fit the adsorption process better than that of the Freundlich model. The thermodynamic parameters (∆H, ∆G and ∆S) were also determined, which revealed that the Cr3+ adsorption process was spontaneous in nature. The present developed P-ZMt could be recovered and reused for more than 6 times. The novel developed P-ZMt is an inexpensive, effective and long-life-cycle adsorbent for Cr3+ removal from water solution.