Adsorptive removal of cadmium (II) and Asensic (III) ion from aqueous solution using zeolite Y synthesized from Kaolin

Zeolite Y synthesized from Arobieye kaolin was used as an adsorbent to remove Cd
²⁺
and As3+in an aqueous solution. The batch adsorption was employed and the influence of contact time, temperature and initial ion concentration on the adsorption system was studied. Zeolite Y was characterized using FTIR, SEM, EDS and XRF. The adsorption equilibrium, kinetics and thermodynamics model was applied. The adsorption of Cd
²⁺
and As
³⁺
attained equilibrium at 60 minutes for the concentration range tested. The adsorption system was best fitted with Langmuir isotherm with R
²
of 0.999 and 0.998 for Cd
²⁺
and As
³⁺
respectively. The maximum adsorption capacities were 34.60 and 35.97 mg/g for Cd
²⁺
and A
^s3+
respectively. Kinetic studies of the system revealed that the adsorption system is well fitted with pseudo-second order when comparing with pseudo-first order and the adsorption capacity calculated from this model is very close to the experimental values. The thermodynamics parameters such as changes in free energy, entropy and enthalpy were calculated. The results show that the adsorption system is spontaneous, exothermic and the disorderliness of the system is reduced.