Abstract
Mg-Fe-Cl Layered double hydroxides (LDHs) have been prepared using a method involving separate nucleation and aging steps with Mg/Fe = 3. The interlayer anions readily replaced by carbonate are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and FTIR. The effects of different parameters, such as pH, contact time, concentration of dye and temperature on the capacity and adsorption mechanism of Mg-Fe-CO3-LDH in removing an anionic dye (congo red, CR) from aqueous solution were separately investigated. The results show that Mg-Fe-CO3-LDH is particularly efficient in removing CR and the dye removal increases with decreasing pH. The adsorption of CR on Mg-Fe-CO3-LDH reached equilibrium after 15 min where 100 mg/L CR was removed. The equilibrium isotherm indicates that the adsorption of CR onto Mg-Fe-CO3-LDH fits to Langmuir and Freundlich equation as well. The adsorption data obtained from the Langmuir model gave good values of the determination coefficient and the saturated adsorption capacity of Mg-Fe-CO3-LDH for CR was found to be 104.6 mg/g. The regeneration study indicates that the prepared LDH could be used for several cycles. The thermodynamic parameters have been calculated, and the adsorption process was found to be spontaneous, endothermic in nature and follows a pseudo-second-order kinetic model. (C) 2012 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.