Adsorption of anionic surfactants onto alumina: Characteristics, mechanisms, and application for heavy metal removal

We investigated adsorption of anionic surfactants, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and sodium tetradecyl sulfate (STS), onto alumina (Al 2 O 3 ) with large size in the present study. The effective conditions for SDS and STS adsorption onto Al 2 O 3 were systematically studied. The conditions for SDS and STS adsorption onto γ-Al 2 O 3 were optimized and found to be contact time 180 min, pH 4, and 1 mM NaCl. Adsorption of both SDS and STS onto large Al 2 O 3 beads increased with an increase of ionic strength, demonstrating that the adsorption is controlled by electrostatic attraction between anionic sulfate groups and positively charged Al 2 O 3 surface, as well as hydrophobic interactions between long alkyl chains of surfactant molecules. Nevertheless, the hydrophobic interaction in terms of STS adsorption is much higher than that of SDS adsorption. The obtained SDS and STS adsorption isotherms in different NaCl concentrations onto Al 2 O 3 beads were fitted well by two-step adsorption. Adsorption mechanisms were disused in detail on the basis of adsorption isotherm, the change in surface charge, and the change in functional surface groups by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The application of surfactant adsorption onto Al 2 O 3 to remove cadmium ion (Cd 2+ ) was also studied. The optimum conditions for Cd 2+ removal using surfactant-modified alumina (SMA) are pH 6, contact time 120 min, and ionic strength 0.1 mM NaCl. Under optimum conditions, the removal efficiency of Cd 2+ using SMA increased significantly. We demonstrate that SMA is a novel adsorbent for removal of Cd 2+ from aqueous solution. Copyright © 2018 Thi Minh Thu Nguyen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.