Abstract
•Mustard seeds was functionalized with tri-octylamine.•The adsorbent was used efficiently for the removal of Cr(VI) from sulfate medium.•The adsorbent was characterized using FT-IR and SEM.•The data fit Langmuir isotherm and pseudo first order mechanism.•The sorption was found to be endothermic, spontaneous with increasing the randomness of the system.•Cr(VI) over Cr(III) and the possibility to separate Cr(VI) from some fission products such as Mo(VI), La(III), Eu(III), Ce(IV) and Y(III) by impregnated (TOA-M)-BR.
The possible use of mustard seeds functionalized with tri-octylamine (TOA) as a novel adsorbent (TOA-M)-BR was used successfully to remove Cr(VI) from sulfate media. The effectiveness of various factors such as, effect of H2SO4 concentration, liquid-to-solid (V/m) ratios, contact time, initial concentrations of Cr(VI), in addition to temperature were investigated. At the optimum conditions (V/m 1.0 Lg−1, H2SO4: 2.5 M, T: 25±1 °C), (%R) was >99% and the maximum uptake reached to 22.67 mg g−1. Cr(VI) uptake process followed the pseudo-first-order rate and thermodynamic parameters were estimated. The obtained data have illustrated that the adsorption process was feasible, spontaneous, and endothermic in nature. The adsorption equilibrium compliance with Langmuir isotherm. The results exhibited that, Cr(III) is not adsorbed under the operating conditions that lead to separate Cr(VI) and Mo(VI) from some fission products such as Eu (III), La(III), Ce(IV), and Y(III) with impregnated (TOA-M)-BR with considerable values of separation efficiency. Both Mo(VI) and Cr(VI) were adsorbed with an efficiency of 90 and 70%, respectively.
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