Copper adsorption on humic acid coated gibbsite: comparison with single sorbent systems

Juan Antelo; Sarah Fiol; Silvia Mariño; Florencio Arce; Dora Gondar; Rocio Lopez

doi:10.1071/EN09066

RESEARCH ARTICLE

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Copper adsorption on humic acid coated gibbsite: comparison with single sorbent systems

Juan Antelo ^A ^B , Sarah Fiol ^A , Silvia Mariño ^A , Florencio Arce ^A , Dora Gondar ^A and Rocio Lopez ^A

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A Department of Physical Chemistry, University of Santiago de Compostela, Avenida de las Ciencias s/n, E-15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

^B Corresponding author. Email: juan.antelo@usc.es

Environmental Chemistry 6(6) 535-543 https://doi.org/10.1071/EN09066
Submitted: 27 May 2009 Accepted: 28 October 2009 Published: 18 December 2009

Environmental context. Adsorption processes control the mobility and bioavailability of nutrients and contaminants in soils, sediments and aquatic systems. Natural organic matter and aluminium oxides are important reactive materials present in natural systems and their mutual interaction may alter the surface properties of both materials, playing an important role on the fate of different contaminants, such as copper, in the environment. The present study illustrates the importance of these interactions, showing that the presence of natural organic matter has a synergic effect on the copper adsorption on the aluminium oxide surface.

Abstract. Copper adsorption processes on aluminium oxides may significantly control the mobility and transport of copper ions in soils and surface waters. The binding of protons and copper to humic acid (HA) and to gibbsite as single sorbent systems was investigated and the results then used to test the validity of the Linear Additivity Model (LAM) for describing copper binding to gibbsite/HA systems. More copper was adsorbed in the gibbsite/HA/Cu²⁺ ternary system, at pH 4 and 6 and ionic strength 0.1 M, than in the corresponding binary systems. Although copper adsorption on gibbsite at pH 4 is rather small, the enhancement in sorption was noteworthy, and can be attributed to the formation of ternary complexes and changes in the electrostatic potentials at the mineral surface or at the HA as a result of their mutual interaction. The LAM predicted satisfactorily the experimental results at pH 6, whereas it underestimated the copper binding at pH 4.

Additional keywords: aluminium oxide, CD-MUSIC, humic acid, NICA–Donnan.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Prof. P. Bermejo from the Analytical Chemistry Department of the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) for the ICP-OES measurements and to Prof. F. Guitián from the Ceramic Institute of the USC for the BET measurements. This work was supported through the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia under the research project CTM2005–02108/TECNO.

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Copper adsorption on humic acid coated gibbsite: comparison with single sorbent systems

Acknowledgements

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