Ammonium Adsorption on Exfoliated Graphite Nanoplatelets

摘要

Ammonium ions are often encountered in fresh surface and underground water bodies, their maximum allowed concentrations being limited by international and national legislation. Among various techniques for removal of ammonium ions from aqueous solutions, nanotechnologies offer major application for water treatment, adsorption being among them. Nano-adsorbents offer significant solutions, based on their high specific surface area and associated sorption sites, the carbon-based ones being intensively studied in the last year and applied as environmental and food sorbents. Hence, in this study, exfoliated graphite nanoplatelets (xGnP) were used for the removal of ammonium ions by adsorption techniques. The influence of several parameters such as pH, temperature and contact time was studied and kinetic and isotherm models were validated to understand the mechanism of adsorption of ammonium by xGnP.