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Chemosphere 180 (2017) 11e23

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Chemosphere
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/chemosphere

Study of the adsorption of mercury (II) on lignocellulosic materials


under static and dynamic conditions
Fabian E. Arias Arias a, Amerigo Beneduci b, c, *, Francesco Chidichimo a, c, Emilia Furia b,
Salvatore Straface a, c
a
Department of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, University of Calabria, Via P. Bucci, Cubo 41B, 87036 Arcavacata di Rende, CS, Italy
b
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Technologies, University of Calabria, Via P. Bucci, Cubo 15D, 87036 Arcavacata di Rende, CS, Italy
c
SIRiA S.r.l. - Servizi Integrati e Ricerche per l'Ambiente, Spin-off of the University of Calabria, Italy

h i g h l i g h t s g r a p h i c a l a b s t r a c t

 Static and dynamic Hg(II) adsorption


tests were carried out on Spanish
broom filters.
 Up to 86% removal of Hg(II) are ob-
tained in typical groundwater
conditions.
 Hg(II) adsorption occurs through the
hydroxyls and carboxyls of the
lignocellulosic material.
 A bimodal Thomas model is proposed
to fit the double S-shape break-
through curves.
 Aquifer polluted by Hg(II) can be
remediated by the Spanish broom.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: WHO has declared mercury as one of the most dangerous pollutants for human health. Unfortunately,
Received 24 August 2016 several cases of rivers and aquifers contaminated by mercury inevitably poses the problem on how to
Received in revised form remediate them. Considerable efforts are being addressed to develop cost-effective methodologies, among
12 December 2016
which the use of low-cost adsorbing materials. In this paper, the adsorption performances of an alternative
Accepted 31 March 2017
Available online 2 April 2017
lignocellulosic material derived from the Spanish broom plant, are presented. This plant is widely diffused
in the world and its usage for Hg(II) removal from water in real working conditions requires only minimal
Handling Editor: Min Jang pretreatment steps. A thoroughly investigation on the kinetics and thermodynamics of Hg(II) adsorption
on Spanish broom is presented, by using Hg(II) polluted aqueous solutions specifically prepared in order to
Keywords: simulate typical groundwater conditions. Several batch experiments, under static conditions, were carried
Mercury pollution out in order to evaluate the effect of pH, contact time, adsorbent dosage, initial concentration, tempera-
Mercury speciation ture. A maximum adsorption capacity of 20 mg L1 can be obtained at pH 5, following a pseudo second
Water remediation order kinetics. Moreover, adsorption experiments in dynamic conditions were carried out using Spanish
Adsorption
broom filters. Interestingly, a systematic, unconventional double S-shape breakthrough curve was
Spanish broom lignocellulosic sorbent
observed under different experimental conditions, revealing the occurrence of two adsorption processes
Double Thomas model
with different time scales. This behavior has been fitted by a bimodal Thomas model which, unlike the
single Thomas fitting, gives satisfactory results with the introduction of a new parameter related to the
fraction of surface active sites involved in the adsorption processes.
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

* Corresponding author. Department of Chemistry and Chemical Technologies, University of Calabria, Via P. Bucci, Cubo 15D, 87036 Arcavacata di Rende, CS, Italy.
E-mail address: amerigo.beneduci@unical.it (A. Beneduci).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2017.03.137
0045-6535/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
12 F.E. Arias Arias et al. / Chemosphere 180 (2017) 11e23

1. Introduction Europe to North Africa up to the Middle East zones, also reaching
some areas of the central and South America. It grows in sunny
The World Health Organization has declared Hg as one of the areas up to an altitude of 1200 m asl, characterized by arid and
most dangerous pollutants for human health (WHO, 1991). It pri- sandy soils. It is a shrubby (from 0.5 to 3.00 m high) and perennial
marily affects the central and peripheral nervous system as well as plant with long stems. The stems are green and cylindrically sha-
respiratory and renal systems. ped, compressible, but tensile resistant, straight and highly
Thanks to its chemical-physical characteristics the Hg is very branched. The sporadic foliage is almost absent, while the bright
important for the industrials process such as, pharmaceutical, oil yellow flowers are often located in the terminal part of the
refinery, electroplating, battery manufacturing, and mining activ- branches. Historically, the Spanish broom was a highly exploited
ities (Manohar et al., 2002). Specifically, gold extraction processes plant and even nowadays it is used for several purposes: tradi-
are responsible of an emission in the environment of about 730 tionally used in the ornamental trade, for yellow dye extraction, as
tons per year of mercury, which is, according to the estimates of the well as for cellulose fibers production (Gabriele et al., 2010),
United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), 35% of the global reforestation of degraded areas, consolidation of high slope ter-
amount of mercury released in the environment (UNEP, 2013). rains, extraction of essences from flowers for perfumes creation,
Organomercury compounds, such as methylmercury and eth- extraction of fibers for fabrics production or building materials
ylmercury, are readily absorbed by human organism causing reinforcement. (Chidichimo et al., 2016).
damage of the central nervous system and, in severe cases, blind- In spite of the multiple uses for which this plant was employed,
ness, deafness or even coma (Al-Damluji, 1976; Ratcliffe et al., this study focuses on the investigation of the broom adsorption
1996). properties with respect to mercury(II). SB has many practical ad-
Several cases of rivers and aquifers contaminated by Hg are vantages as raw adsorbent material, due to its widespread diffu-
ascertained to date and their remediation would be quite expen- sion, the very easy as well as economic pretreatment steps for its
sive. Therefore, considerable efforts are being addressed to develop operation and the exceptional mechanical properties needed for
cost-effective methodologies for the removal of Hg from superficial setting up filters such as permeable reactive barriers. In addition, it
water and groundwater to prevent sea pollution, fish contamina- served us to thoroughly investigate the adsorption performances of
tion and hence man poisoning through the food chain. Hg(II) on a typical raw lignocellulosic material under either static or
Electrochemical reduction and precipitation (Esalah et al., 2000; dynamic experimental set-ups and using Hg(II) polluted aqueous
Lin and Peng, 1994; Cantrell et al., 1995), electrodialysis, coagula- solutions under conditions typically found in groundwater.
tion (Mrozowski and Zielinski., 1983; Kumar et al., 2004; Adhoum
et al., 2004), flotation, adsorption on surfaces and pores (Naiya 2. Materials and methods
et al., 2009; Zhang et al., 2005; Rao et al., 2009), ion-exchange
(Visa, 2016; Alyüz and Veli, 2009), are among the developed 2.1. Spanish broom characterization
techniques used for heavy metals removal from aqueous solutions.
Adsorption through chemical-physical mechanisms using ma- 2.1.1. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis
terials based on zero valent iron (Cantrell et al., 1995; Weisener The chemical composition of the broom used in the present
et al., 2005; Liu et al., 2014; Wilkin and Mc Neil, 2003), zeolites study has been previous determined (Gabriele et al., 2010): 44.5
(Visa, 2016; Murthy et al., 2013; Alver and Metin, 2012; Wang and (0.2)% of Cellulose; 18.5 (0.3)% of Lignin; 16.3 (0.1)% of Pentosans;
Peng, 2010), active carbons (Zhang et al., 2005; Rao et al., 2009; 13.3 (0.1)% of Pectins and 4.0 (0.2)% of Ash.
Zabihi et al., 2010; Juang et al., 2002), and ion exchange resins To characterize the SB fibers FTIR spectra between 375 and
(Chiarle et al., 2000), have shown good efficacy in the removal of 4000 cm1 were directly collected on dry samples by a Bruker
various heavy metals, including Hg(II) (Gupta et al., 2015; Zhang ALPHA FT-IR spectrometer equipped with a A241/D reflection
et al., 2005; Rao et al., 2009; Liu et al., 2014; Murthy et al., 2013; module.
Zabihi et al., 2010; Namasivayam and Kadirvelu, 1999). Synthetic
porous organic polymers-based mercury nano-traps, have also 2.1.2. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis
been shown to have high efficiency and efficacy in the removal of The structure of the Spanish broom fibers was analyzed by a
Hg(II) from water (Li et al., 2014). However, all of these methods SEM LEO 420 (LEO Electron Microscopy Ltd., Cambridge, England).
require the preliminary activation or the synthesis of the adsorbent Fiber samples were gold sputter-coated with an Auto Sputter
materials through several steps, leading to rather costly and/or Coater, AGAR. Images were acquired under an accelerating voltage
poor green technologies. Therefore, attention has been focused on of 15.00 kV.
several potentially low-cost sorbents (Bailey et al., 1999) among
which lignocellulosic materials derived from plants as by-products 2.1.3. X-ray fluorescent spectroscopy (XRF) analysis
or as waste from other production chains (agroindustry, paper, In order to show the presence of mercury on the lignocellulosic
sugar production, etc.) (Namasivayam and Kadirvelu, 1999; Ho and fibers, XRF analysis was performed with a Bruker Tracer III,
Wang, 2008; Mahajan and Sud, 2013; Khoramzadeh et al., 2013) equipped with a Rh/Pd source, at a voltage of 40 kV, a current of
seem very promising. Lignocellulose is the most abundant raw 11 mA and an acquisition time of 15 s. Spanish broom samples,
material on Earth and is composed of cellulose, lignin, hemicellu- before and after suspension in Hg(II) solution, were dried in a
lose and pectin (Khachatourians and Arora, 2001) thus containing desiccator, and pelleted to form disks that were subsequently
either carboxyl or hydroxyl functional groups at its surface placed directly onto the probe of the instrument for the
(Henriksson, 2009), which are in principle able to bind various measurement.
heavy metals through chemical-physical adsorption (Lv et al.,
2012). 2.2. Spanish broom pretreatment and solutions preparation
Here we study the performances of the plant Spanish Broom as
adsorbent lignocellulosic material for mercury removal from water. Before its usage in the experimental tests, the Spanish broom
The common broom, also called fragrant broom or Spanish broom was first washed with distillated water and dried for five hours at
(Spartium junceum) is a plant belonging to the Febacaea family. It is 105  C, to remove its water content, then it was grinded by an in-
a native species of the Mediterranean area, which goes from South dustrial mill, up to an average size of about 5 mm.
F.E. Arias Arias et al. / Chemosphere 180 (2017) 11e23 13

All chemicals and reagents used for the experiments had an constants for the hydrolytical species (Eqs. S2-S4) of the metal ion,
analytical grade of purity. Ultrapure water (18.3 MU cm, Arioso- which were took from literature (Baes and Mesmer, 1976), were
Human Corporation) was used for all the solutions. A stock solu- kept fixed.
tion of Hg(II) with a concentration of 1000 mg L1 was prepared
starting from Hg(NO3)2$H2O (Sigma-Aldrich, 99.99% purity). Chlo- 2.5. Adsorption experiments
ride ions at a concentration of 150 mg L1 were also added to the
stock solution through the addition of concentrated HCl. This was The effect of pH on Hg adsorption, was studied by performing
done in order to have Cl ions concentration in the range of the batch tests in which 0.5 g of Spanish broom were suspended in
groundwater samples collected in important aquifers involved by 50 mL of 80 mg L1 Hg(II) solution at room temperature. The pH
Hg pollution (INIGEMM, 2013). The working standard solutions, was varied in the range 2e9 by adding HNO3 or NaOH solution.
adopted in the tests, were prepared by means of serial dilutions of Adsorption kinetics and the influence of the contact time were
the Hg stock solution. HNO3 and NaOH solutions were used to evaluated in similar batch tests using the following conditions: 1)
adjust the pH of these solutions. initial Hg(II) concentration ¼ 100 mg L1, solution
Hg concentration in the samples collected during the experi- volume ¼ 0.400 L, mass of sorbent ¼ 40.00 g; 2) initial Hg(II)
mental activities, was measured by an Inductively Coupled Plasma concentration ¼ 200 mg L1, solution volume ¼ 0.400 L, mass of
Mass Spectrometer (ICP/MS, iCapQ Thermofischer). The instrument sorbent ¼ 20.00 g; 3) initial Hg(II) concentration ¼ 100 mg L1,
was calibrated using different analytical standards concentrations solution volume ¼ 0.400 L, mass of sorbent ¼ 2.00 g, at pH
(TraceCERT® certified reference materials (CRM)): 1, 5, 10 and 5.02 ± 0.3.
20 ppb. A pH meter (HI221, Hanna Instruments), calibrated with Adsorption isotherms at different temperatures were obtained
two different buffer solutions (pH ¼ 4.01 and 7.00) was used. All from similar batch experiments in which 0.5 g of Spanish broom
samples were purified with a 0.45 mm filter and then acidified with were suspended in 50 mL of Hg(II) solutions with different con-
HNO3 (pH ¼ 2) before ICP/MS analysis. centrations in the range 1e180 mg L1. The suspensions, contained
in 50 mL Falcons, were immersed in a water bath and incubated in
2.3. Potentiometric titrations an oven at the set temperature for eight hours. During the incu-
bation time, each suspension was subjected to vigorous agitations
The potentiometric titration experiments were carried out by inversion for 30 s every hour.
through a Hanna 22001 potentiometer with temperature control. These experiments were also useful to assess the influence of
Titrations were performed on suspensions of the absorbent ma- the Hg(II) initial concentration on the Spanish broom adsorption
terial (2 g L1) or on blank control samples not containing the capacity and removal efficiency.
absorbent. The suspensions were acidified using HNO3 at pH 3 Another set of batch experiments were also carried out in order
and then the suspensions were slowly back-titrated with stan- to test the effect of the increasing adsorbent dosage (mass of
dard 0.1 M NaOH up to about pH 10. The Gran's plot methods was Spanish broom) on the adsorption capacity and mercury removal
used for precise end points determination of Spanish broom efficiency. In each experiment, the Hg(II) solution concentration
acidic groups (Gran, 1952; Rossotti and Rossotti, 1965). The ionic was fixed at 80 mg L1 and gradually increasing the amounts of
strength was maintained constant throughout the titration ex- Spanish broom, in step of 0.5 g, from 0.5 g to 7.0 g. Each amount was
periments by the addition of NaNO3 (0.1 M), according to the suspended in 50 mL of the above Hg(II) solution.
procedures previously described by Guo et al. (2008) and Niu To analyze the results, the adsorption capacity, i.e., the amount
et al. (2009). of adsorbed mercury per unit mass of adsorbent (qt) was
determined:
2.4. Speciation study of Hg(II) in the presence of chloride
ðC0  Ct ÞV
qt ¼ (1)
Hydrochloric acid, sodium hydroxide and sodium nitrate stock W
solutions were prepared and standardized as described previously
where C0 and Ct are the initial and mercury ion concentrations (mg
(Porto et al., 2005; Khalil and Radalla, 1998). Mercury (II) nitrate
L1) at time t, respectively, V is the volume of the solution (L) and W
stock solution was prepared and standardized according to Esteban
is the adsorbent mass (g). When the adsorption equilibrium con-
et al. (1986). The hydrogen ion concentration in the metal cation
dition holds, Ct ¼ Ce and qt ¼ qe where, Ce is the equilibrium con-
stock solution was determined potentiometrically with a glass
centration and qe is the equilibrium adsorption capacity.
electrode using Gran's method (Gran, 1952; Rossotti and Rossotti,
The Hg(II) removal efficiency (RE%), defined by the Eq. (2), was
1965). All solutions were prepared by using ultrapure water with
also used to assess the adsorption performances of the fiber.
a resistivity of 18.2 MU cm, obtained from a Milli-Q plus system
(Millipore, Bedford, MA, USA). ðC0  Ce Þ
The complexation equilibria were studied in 0.1 M NaNO3 and at RE % ¼  100 (2)
C0
25  C by measuring with a glass electrode the competition of
chloride for Hþ and the metal cation. The cell arrangement and the
electrodes employed were described in a previous work (Furia
et al., 2009). A slight flow of nitrogen gas was passed through 2.6. Flow cell experiments
three bottles (aec) containing: (a) 1 M NaOH, (b) 1 M H2SO4 and (c)
0.1 M NaNO3, and finally into the test solutions, continuously stir- Adsorption experiments were also carried out by pumping the
red during the potentiometric measurements. The metal (CM) and Hg(II) solution within a Spanish broom filter. The grinded plant was
ligand (CL) concentrations were ranged from 0.5 to 5 mM, the packed into a clear acrylic column (flow cell) of 15 cm length and an
ligandtometal ratio was varied between 1 and 10 and pH was inner diameter of 56 mm. Packing was conducted taking care to
ranged from 2 to 9. The test solution's acidity was varied stepwise create a homogeneous porous medium. At both ends of the column,
by adding CB M NaOH stock solution. The interpretation of the the broom was retained by a non-woven membrane, a metal plate
potentiometric data was carried out with the program Superquad 2-mm thick with 2.5-mm wide openings and a closing flange. The
(Gans et al., 1985). During the numerical treatment the equilibrium aforementioned configuration ensures that the entire cross section
14 F.E. Arias Arias et al. / Chemosphere 180 (2017) 11e23

of the filtering material is affected by the flow of the solution. The bundles of cylindrical microfibers glued together by lignin. Each
inlet flow rate (at the bottom of the column) was fixed by a peri- microfibers has a diameter of about 4 mm.
staltic pump (model PD 5101, Heidolf). The outlet flow rate (at the
top) was sampled in time to trace the breakthrough curves 3.2. Effects of various parameters on Hg(II) removal
describing the adsorption performances of the broom in the
different conditions adopted for each experiment (Fig. S1). For this 3.2.1. pH influence
purpose different amounts of adsorbent material were used (80 g Fig. 1 shows the influence of initial pH on the adsorption ca-
and 115 g) and subjected to different flow rates (19, 15, and pacity of the Spanish broom. As can be seen, adsorption increases
10 mL min1) having the same mercury concentration of with pH starting from removal percentages of about 67% at pH 2 up
100 mg L1. to about 85% for pH  6. There is a step-wise increase of the
The following tests were designed and performed (mass of removal efficiency % above pH 4 and another stepwise increase
adsorbent material e flow rate): a) 80 ge19 mL min1; b) above pH 7 that can be only seen at its initial stage in Fig. 1. This is in
115 ge19 mL min1; c) 115 ge15 mL min1 and d) agreement with the titration curve of the Spanish broom, which
115 ge10 mL min1. Sampling was realized every 30 min. shows two equivalent points at pH 4.25 and 7.48, as determined by
the Gran plot's method (Rossotti and Rossotti, 1965; Guo et al.,
2.7. Curve-fitting procedure and statistical analysis 2008) (Fig. S4). These points can be attributed to the ionization of
the carboxyl and phenolic hydroxyl groups of the lignin, respec-
The curve-fitting procedures were performed by the Levenberg- tively (Lv et al., 2012; Guo et al., 2008). It is clear that, as the acidic
Marquardt nonlinear least squares method. It involves an iterative functional groups present on the broom are ionized due to the in-
improvement to parameter values in order to reduce the sum of the crease of the pH, the adsorption efficiency increases.
squares of the errors between the function and the measured data This effect can be partly explained by the increase of the nega-
points. At each iteration, the parameters used in the model were tive charge on the surface of the material that is therefore able to
varied in order to minimize the chi-square (c2 ): more efficiently attract positive ions and partly by the ability of the
oxygen atoms to make stable complexes with the mercury (II)
1 X species present in solution. The adsorption properties of the broom
c2 ¼ wi ½yi  f ðxi ; p1 ; p2 ; …Þ2 (3)
neff p i are due to its composite material nature, where cellulose and lignin
play the major role. Indeed, metal cations can interact with the
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi hydroxyl groups of cellulose and lignin as well as with the carboxyl
si¼ Cii c2i (4) functional groups of lignin. The chelating action of hydroxyl and
carboxyl groups toward several metals, is known (Porwal et al.,
where, y is the dependent variable, the independent variables, is 2015; Beneduci et al., 2011; Furia and Sindona, 2012; Adhoum
the total number of experimental points used in the fitting, p is the et al., 2004; Furia et al., 2013; D’Adamo et al., 2010). Specifically,
total number of adjustable parameters used in the fitting, p1 ; p2 ; … the monomers constituting the lignin polymer, p-Coumaryl alchol,
are the model parameters to be varied in order to minimize c2 . Conferyl alchol, and their derivatives (Henriksson, 2009), provide
As a measure to determine the goodness of fit the adjusted r- exceptional moieties for heavy metal binding under different pH
square (R2) was used. The closer the fit is to the data points, the and other solution conditions (Furia and Sindona, 2012; Furia et al.,
closer the adjusted r-square will be to the value of 1. 2013; Porwal et al., 2015).
Standard error on each fitted parameters was calculated in the Another important aspect to be considered when the influence
fitting procedure by Eq. (4) where, Cii is the diagonal element of the of the pH is analyzed with respect to the mercury adsorption, is the
variance-covariance matrix. Hg(II) speciation within the solution. Previous studies have shown
Each experiment has been replicated at least three times. The that, in the absence of chelating agents, Hgþ2 is the dominant
data points on each graph represent the average value calculated species in solution at pH < 3, Hg(OH)2 is the dominant one at
over the replicates and the error bars are the corresponding stan- pH > 5, while for pH values between 3 and 5, both species coexist
dard deviations. (Zhang et al., 2005). Moreover, small traces of HgOHþ ranging from
1% to 13% of the total mercury Hg(II), were also detected for pH
3. Results values between 2 and 6. When agents able to complex the Hg(II)
ions are present in solution, the speciation of Hg(II) significantly
3.1. Spanish broom characterization changes. As shown in Fig. 1b, Hg(II) forms several stable products
related either to the equilibrium of hydrolysis of Hg2þ (Hg(OH)þ,
Fig. S2 shows the typical FTIR spectrum of Spanish broom (SB). Hg(OH)2, Hg(OH)-3) or to the complexation equilibrium with the
The peaks picked are characteristic of lignocellulosic materials chloride (HgClþ, HgCl2, HgCl 2
3 and HgCl4 ), together with the mixed
(Casas et al., 2012). Clearly distinguishable are the peaks related to species Hg(OH)Cl (Supplementary Information). It can be seen that,
the cellulose fraction and those of the lignin one. Thus, the peaks at for pH values between 3.5 up to 5.5, the predominant species is the
1169 cm1 and at 898 cm1 are attributed to the C e O e C asym- HgCl2 complex.
metric stretching vibration and C1 e H deformation in cellulose. On It is worth noting that all the adsorption experiments were
the other hand, the intense peak at 1741 cm1 is related to the C ¼ O carried out at pH ¼ 5 and in the presence of chloride. These con-
stretching vibrations of the carboxyl groups of lignin. Moreover, ditions served to approximate those of typical groundwater
vibrations at 1330 cm1 and 830 cm1 are typical of the syringyl (INIGEMM, 2013), where the predominant species is HgCl2 (Fig. 1b).
unit, while the guaiacyl ring vibration occurs at 1511 cm1. Other Therefore, all the results reported in this work mainly reflect the
characteristic peaks of lignin are that at 1383 cm1 attributed to the adsorption of HgCl2 and represent a lower limit of adsorption
phenolic hydroxyls and the small peak at 1511 cm1 related to the performances for SB. At increasing pH, the RE% increases (Fig. 1a),
aromatic skeletal vibration. but other species come into play in the adsorption mechanism.
The ultrastructure of SB has been analyzed by SEM. A repre-
sentative images of the structure of the lignocellulosic fiber is re- 3.2.2. Effect of the contact time
ported in Fig. S3. It shows that the SB fibers are organized in parallel Fig. 2 shows the trend of the Hg(II) concentration as a function of
F.E. Arias Arias et al. / Chemosphere 180 (2017) 11e23 15

Fig. 1. (a) Hg(II) adsorption as a function of the initial pH (C0 ¼ 80 mg L1; W ¼ 0.5 g, T ¼ 298 K). (b) Distribution diagram of Hg2þ in the presence of chloride (CM ¼ 5$104 M and
CL ¼ 4$103 M).

the contact time between the solution and the broom. There is a of available active sites. Moreover, it is interesting to note that the
fast Hg concentration reduction during the first 60 min (Fig. 2a), above trends are nonlinear and both the observables seem to tend
which leads to a removal percentage of over 70% in both tests to a plateau value that is determined by the thermodynamic of the
(Fig. 2b). The rate of mercury removal becomes subsequently much adsorption processes.
slower, until it reaches a plateau value, corresponding to the
equilibrium condition. As can be seen from Fig. 2, the equilibrium 3.3. Adsorption kinetics
time, i.e. the time required to reach the maximum Hg(II) adsorp-
tion, it is not influenced by the Hg(II) concentration or by the The mechanism of adsorption of ions and other substances such
amount of adsorbent material. Indeed, in both cases the equilib- as dyes on solid porous surfaces (particle), generally involves
rium was reached after about 480 min (8 h), resulting in an several steps characterized by different rates, in which the solute
adsorption of more than 86%. Mercury can be easily detected on the diffuses into the adsorbent material. The complexity of the
dry fiber after the adsorption experiment by XRF (Fig. 2c), thus adsorption process can be fully displayed in a qt vs. t1/2 plot, ac-
confirming the adsorption of mercury by the lignocellulosic cording to Eq. (3) (Weber and Morris, 1962), generally showing a
material. multilinearity in the set of kinetic data in any adsorption experi-
ment where intraparticle diffusion (IPD) occurs (Wu et al., 2009).
3.2.3. Effect of the initial concentration and of the adsorbent dosage Fig. 4a shows the IPD plot for the Hg(II) on the Spanish broom fiber.
The adsorption capacity (qe) of the Spanish broom increases As can be observed, three linear regions were identified corre-
quite linearly with the initial concentration of Hg(II) in solution (C0) sponding to different diffusion steps. The initial, most rapid one, is
almost in the whole range of initial concentrations considered, related to the external surface adsorption during which the Hg(II)
though at high concentrations a deviation from linearity does occur species moves from the bulk of the solution to the fiber surface. The
(Fig. S5). This suggests that the Spanish broom has a limited second linear region may be related to the gradual diffusion of the
number of adsorbent sites, which is fixed by its amount and by the solute into the pores of the lignocellulosic matrix. The final equi-
experimental conditions adopted (mainly pH, temperature, solu- librium process may involve a very slow diffusion of the Hg(II)
tion volume/adsorbent mass ratio, etc.). Thus, qe increases as long species from larger pores to smaller ones or from lignin rich to
as free active sites are available on the broom. When all the active cellulose rich regions, being the adsorbent material a lignocellu-
sites are involved by the adsorption process, the saturation and losic composite.
therefore the maximum adsorbent capacity per unit mass of Each linear region can be fitted by Eq. (5) giving the kinetic
adsorbent material (qm), is achieved. constant kp for each process.
Due to the above trend, the adsorption efficiency of the broom,
defined as the percentage of mercury removal from the solution, qt ¼ kp t 1=2 þ C (5)
is almost independent of C0, assuming an average value of
(67 ± 5) %, (Fig. 3a). In contrast, the equilibrium concentration of where, kp is the rate constant of intraparticle diffusion expressed in
Hg(II) in solution monotonically increases with C0 (Fig. 3a). mg g1-min1/2 and C (mg g1), the intercept at qt ¼ 0, is a constant
However, it is worth noting that at low initial concentrations for the process.
(<10 mg L1), the equilibrium concentration falls in the ppb range The contribution of the first diffusion step can be evaluated by
(Fig. 3a). the characteristic ratio or initial adsorption ratio Ri given by Eq. (6):
It is expected that the percentage of mercury removal depends
on the adsorbent dosage, being the other conditions the same (Rao qref  C
Ri ¼ (6)
et al., 2009). This is actually the case, as illustrated in Fig. 3b. qref
Adsorption efficiencies as high as 87% were found at 7 g of Spanish
broom suspended in 50 mL of a 80 mg L1 solution of Hg(II). where, qref is the adsorption capacity at the longest time and C can
It is also evident from the plot in Fig. 3b that the efficiency in- be related to the boundary layer thickness (Wu et al., 2009).
creases with the increase of the mass of Spanish broom. On the The values of kp and Ri are reported in Table 1 for three batch
other hand, the adsorption capacity has an opposite trend and experiments which only differ for the employed mass of fiber. The
decreases with the adsorbent mass. Both these trends strongly calculated Ri ratio is less than 0.5 (Table 1) indicating that the
indicate a situation far from the saturation, due to the large excess adsorption kinetics has a strong extent of surface adsorption that
16 F.E. Arias Arias et al. / Chemosphere 180 (2017) 11e23

The IPD model provides a fractional description of the adsorp-


tion kinetics of Hg(II) species on the fiber, highlighting that a va-
riety of processes takes place according to the existence of active
binding sites either on the surface of the fiber or at its interior.
However, it does not provide a whole description of the entire set of
kinetic data. A complementary approach is to calculate the number
of free active sites per unit mass of fiber at time t (Sf) by assuming a
pseudo first order or a pseudo second order kinetics (Ho, 2006).
These models rely on the assumption that the following adsorption
equilibrium holds:

Sf þ HgðIIÞ ¼ S  HgðIIÞ ðequilibrium 1Þ

where, S-Hg(II) is the mercury-fiber complex formed upon


adsorption, corresponding to the number of occupied active sites
per unit mass of fiber (So).
The pseudo first order kinetics (Lagergren, 1898), assumes that
the rate of change of the adsorption capacity is proportional to the
concentration of available active sites per unit mass of adsorbent
material (Eq. (7));

dqt
¼ k1 ðqe  qt Þ (7)
dt

where, qt is the adsorption capacity at time t and qe is the equi-


librium adsorption capacity.
This model failed to reproduce the entire set of data (Fig. S6), in
agreement with similar observation on different adsorbent mate-
rials (Zabihi et al., 2010). In contrast, very good fitting results were
obtained by a pseudo second order rate model (Table 1). It assumes
that the rate of change of the concentration of occupied active sites
per unit mass of the adsorbent material, is proportional to the
square of the concentration of free active sites per unit mass of
sorbent (Ho and McKay, 1999; Kumar, 2006). In terms of adsorption
capacity, the pseudo second order rate equation can be written as
(Ho, 2006):

dqt
¼ k2 ðqe  qt Þ2 (8)
dt

where, k2 is the pseudo-second order rate constant (g mg1min1)


scaled by the number of active sites per unit mass of fiber, qe and qt
are the concentrations of Hg(II) species per unit mass of fiber (mg
g1) at equilibrium and at time t, respectively. It can be shown that
Eq. (6) can be derived from a first order kinetics of the rate of the
adsorption process with respect to both the concentration of Hg(II)
in solution and the concentration of free active sites on the adsor-
bent material. Integration of Eq. (8) and linearization of the inte-
grated equation, leads to Eq. (9) which is one of the linear forms
that can be advantageously used to fit the data by plotting the t/qt
ratio as a function of t (Kumar, 2006):

t 1 1
¼ þ t (9)
qt K2 q2e qe
The key parameters k2 and qe can then be directly extracted
from the linear fitting (Fig. 4b), whose results are reported in
Table 1.
Fig. 2. Removal efficiency (RE%) (a) and Hg(II) concentration (Ct) as a function of the
contact time (b), at two different Hg(II) initial concentration (Hg 100 and 200 mg L1).
In agreement with the results discussed before in Fig. 3b, the
XRF spectra of the Spanish broom before (black line) and after adsorption (red line) (c). equilibrium adsorption capacity decreases with the increase of the
(For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is adsorbent mass. In contrast, the pseudo second order rate constant
referred to the web version of this article.) decreases with the reduction of the mass of fibers due to the
decrease of the total number of active sites.
accounts for more than 80% increase of qt (Juang et al., 2002; Tunali The above results support a chemisorption mechanism in
et al., 2006), that is to say that most of the adsorption of Hg(II) which the interaction between the functional groups of the sor-
occurs on the surface of the Spanish broom fiber. bent and HgCl2, leads to the formation of mercury-lignocellulosic
F.E. Arias Arias et al. / Chemosphere 180 (2017) 11e23 17

Fig. 3. (a) Effect of the initial concentration on the adsorption process (W ¼ 0.5 g, V ¼ 50 mL); (b) effect of the adsorbent dosage on the efficiency of the adsorption process
(C0 ¼ 80 mg L1, V ¼ 50 mL).

that cellulose is a poor sorbent of heavy metal cations and that it


should be activated by chemical modification in order to improve
its adsorption capacity (Demirbas, 2008). This is due to the un-
favorable interaction between the soft Hg(II) metal (Pearson,
1963) and the hard hydroxyl groups of cellulose. On the other
hand, Hg(II) may better interact with the more acidic carboxyl
groups of lignin. This hypothesis is in agreement with the fact
that lignin can form both monodentate and bidentate complexes
with HgCl2 through the involvement of both carboxyl and phenol
binding sites (Lv et al., 2012). This mechanism should lead to a pH
decrease following adsorption due to the concomitant release of
chloride acid into the aqueous medium. We verified this mech-
anism by observing that the final pH of the solution after
adsorption is lower than the initial one (pH ¼ 5), ranging from 4.3
to 4.8 and systematically decreases with the increase of the initial
Hg(II) concentration (Table S2). This indicates that the above re-
action do effectively occurs with the release of hydrochloric acid
in solution. Thus, the complexation of HgCl2 by the lignocellulosic
fibers, evidently involves the acidic functional groups of the fi-
bers, mainly located on lignin.

3.4. Asdorption isotherm

The plot of the adsorption capacity (qe) versus the equilibrium


concentration of a solution (Ce) at constant temperature is called
adsorption isotherm. The mercury adsorption isotherms at several
temperatures are reported in Fig. 5. They show a rather rapid in-
crease of the adsorption capacity for low Ce values and a decrease of
the slope at higher equilibrium concentrations, suggesting the ex-
istence of plateau values for the adsorption capacity.
This trend should correspond to an L-type isotherm according to
Giles et al. (1974), which can be suitably described by the Langmuir
model (Eq. (10)) (Limousin et al., 2007; Atkins and De Paula, 2006).
This model assumes that the adsorption process is restricted to a
monolayer surface coverage on a uniform surface exhibiting
equivalent binding sites and that there are not interactions among
the adsorbed solute species that may affect the adsorption mech-
Fig. 4. Adsorption kinetics. (a) Intraparticle diffusion plot showing three regions of anism (Atkins and De Paula, 2006). Due to the limited number of
linearity (C0 ¼ 200 mg L1, V ¼ 0.100 L, W ¼ 5 g, T ¼ 298 K). (b) Pseudo second order active sites on the surface of the adsorbent material, the maximum
plots showing the fitting between the experimental data points, obtained for three adsorption capacity, qm, can be predicted.
different adsorbent material masses, and the linear function described by Eq. (9). The
working conditions for each set of data are reported in Table 1.
qm KL Ce
qe ¼ (10)
1 þ KL Ce

complexes (Sf-Hg(II)), as supposed with the equilibrium (1). This where, KL is the Langmuir adsorption constant related to the
interaction may involve either the hydroxyl groups of cellulose equilibrium distribution constant Kd at very low qe far from the
and lignin or the carboxyl groups of lignin. However, it is known saturation (Eq. (11)):
18 F.E. Arias Arias et al. / Chemosphere 180 (2017) 11e23

Table 1
Fitting results of the pseudo second order kinetic modela.

W (g) IPD model Pseudo second order model

Kp (mg g1 min-1/2) Ri R2 k2 g mg1 min1 qe (mg g1) R2


b
40.00 0.040 (0.004) 0.36 0.9493 0.137 (0.031) 0.908 (0.003) 0.9998
20.00c 0.15 (0.04) 0.31 0.7643 0.0280 (0.007) 3.45 (0.02) 0.9995
2.00d 0.10 (0.02) 0.22 0.9025 0.0193 (0.006) 5.29 (0.04) 0.9997
a
Values in parentheses are the standard deviation of the data.
b
C0 ¼ 100 mg L1, V ¼ 0.400 L, W ¼ 40.00 g.
c
C0 ¼ 200 mg L1, V ¼ 0.400 L, W ¼ 20.00 g.
d
C0 ¼ 100 mg L1, V ¼ 0.400 L, W ¼ 2.00 g.

Fig. 5. Experimental adsorption isotherms for mercury at different temperatures and nonlinear curve fitting with the Langmuir (a) and Freundlich model (b).

The mechanism of monolayer adsorption is further supported


qe qe K by the fact that a multilayers model, such as that of Elovich
KL ¼ y ¼ d ; in the limit qe ≪qm ; with Kd
Ce ðqm  qe Þ Ce qm qm (Hamdaoui and Naffrechoux, 2007), is not able to reproduce the
qe experimental set of data (Supplementary Information, Fig. S7).
¼
Ce
(11) 3.4.1. Thermodynamic of the adsorption
The results of the nonlinear curve fitting with the Langmuir The Langmuir model has been used to extract the thermody-
model are summarized in Table 2. namic quantities related to the adsorption isotherms. The distri-
Good results were obtained also with the Freundlich model bution constant Kd has been used to calculate the Gibbs free
(Table 2 and Fig. 5b), which does not introduce any limitation on energy ( DG0ads ) using Eq. (11). The value of DG0ads ¼ 14.2 (0.3) kJ
the mechanism of surface coverage (Eq. (12)) (Limousin et al., 2007; mol1, averaged over the temperature range considered, clearly
Haghseresht and Lu, 1998): indicates that the adsorption process is spontaneous (Mondal
et al., 2013; Gupta and Nayak, 2012). By applying the van't Hoff
1=n equation, the adsorption enthalpy was also derived from the slope
qe ¼ KF Ce (12) of the plot of lnKd versus T1 (Fig. S8), with the assumption that
DHads
0 is independent on T in the restricted temperature range
where, KF is the Freundlich constant related to the distribution
considered.
constant and n is a parameter related to the surface heterogeneity.
Values of n close to zero indicate strong surface heterogeneity DG0ads ¼ RTlnKd (13)
(Haghseresht and Lu, 1998). It is also evident, from Eqs. (10) and
1
(12), that the Freundlich and the Langmuir models become equiv- The negative enthalpy value DHads
0
¼ 10 (3) kJ mol , indicates
alent if n ¼ 1 and KL Ce ≪1. that the adsorption of mercury on Spanish broom fiber is

Table 2
Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption isotherms parameters.

T (K) Langmuir model Freundlich model

Kda (cm3g1) qm (mg g1) R2 KF (mg (1n)


g1 L1/n) n R2

294 315 (6) 20 (4) 0.96038 0.6 (0.2) 1.5 (0.2) 0.93719
301 307 (5) 20 (1) 0.99752 0.58 (0.07) 1.46 (0.07) 0.99090
311 223 (3) 20 (4) 0.97901 0.43 (0.09) 1.4 (0.1) 0.97997
328 213 (4) 28 (11) 0.95729 0.5 (0.1) 1.4 (0.1) 0.96730
a
Calculated with Eq. (10); Kd becomes dimensionless if the density of the solution is assumed equal to that of water. Values in parentheses are the standard deviation of the
data.
F.E. Arias Arias et al. / Chemosphere 180 (2017) 11e23 19

exothermic, in agreement with the decreases of the equilibrium


distribution constant with T (Table 2 and Fig. S8).
Finally, the maximum adsorption capacity does not change
significantly with T, indicating that the adsorption efficiency of the
Spanish broom is quite independent of the temperature. The
Spanish broom shows a good adsorption capacity compared to
other materials (Zabihi et al., 2010; Gupta et al., 2015; Lv et al.,
2012; Yee et al., 2013; Bag et al., 2007; Shin et al., 2007; Feng
et al., 1997; Liu et al., 1998; MacKay et al., 1989; Li et al., 2014;
Thielke et al., 2016) which, however, must be activated with
chemical or physical pretreatments or even prepared by chemical
synthesis (Table S2).

3.5. Dynamic study in column

Fig. 6 shows the breakthrough curves obtained by plotting the


ratio between the outlet (Ct) and inlet (C0) concentration of Hg(II) as
a function of time, under different sorbent mass (m) and different
flow rates (Q). It can be seen that, for a given mass, as the flow rate
decreases the exhaustion point, i.e., the point at which the adsor-
bent bed is fully saturated, shifts forward in time.
According to the literature (Bear, 1972; Dagan, 1989; Neuman,
1990), this is a typical behavior and is due to the fact that at
decreasing flow rates the concentration of mercury per unit time
flowing through the column is lower, being the other conditions the
same. Therefore, the exhaustion point occurs later.
On the other hand, at the same flow rate, as the adsorbent mass
increases the exhaustion point occurs later. This can be explained
by taking into account the increase of the overall number of active
sites as the m/C0 ratio increases.
However, in contrast to a typical S-shape trend generally
observed for a breakthrough curve collected during constant in-
jection tracer tests (De Marsily, 1986; Pugliese et al., 2013), here we
observed a systematic double S shape behavior. Indeed, we can
clearly identify two breakpoints, one intermediate and a final
pseudo-exhaustion point on each curve reported in Fig. 6. This
suggests that mercury adsorption occurs in at least two processes
with different timescales. According to the batch results regarding
the adsorption kinetics (Fig. 4), it can be advanced the hypothesis Fig. 6. Breakthrough plots showing the Ct/C0 ratio as a function of time with an inlet
Hg(II) concentration C0 ¼ 100 mg L1. Solid lines are the fitting curves modeled by a
that, during column operation, the adsorption mechanism involves
Single Thomas (a) and a Double Thomas model (b). The two breakpoints, common to
the surface active sites in the first events until they become totally all the S-shape curves, are indicated by arrows.
occupied, and then the inner ones which, however, contribute to a
lesser extent to the overall adsorption. As highlighted in section 3.3, is defined as
in which the adsorption kinetics of the batch tests have been dis-
cussed, Spanish broom fibers are responsible of a diffusion process pffiffiffiffiffi
involving different solute transport steps (IPD). This process is q k0
Pe ¼ (14)
probably the same observed during column dynamic tests and nD0
causing the occurrence of the double S shape curves. The hypoth-
esis is that the adsorption mechanism should first involve all the where q (m s1) is Darcy's velocity, k0 (m2) is the intrinsic perme-
external superficial active sites of the fibers, and then the ones ability of the porous medium, n is the porosity, an D0 (m2 s1) is the
settled within the fibers which, however, give a minor contribute to diffusion coefficient. When Pe [ 1 transport by advection is faster
the overall adsorption process. When a solution flows within a than transport by diffusion, and the system is advection dominated.
porous medium, the solute is transported according to three main As the Peclet Number decreases the three processes become com-
processes: advection which is originated from the fluid's flow parable. For small values (Pe < 1), diffusion dominates (De Marsily,
which in turn is determined by the fluid's physical properties and 1986). Table 3 shows the Peclet Numbers calculated for all the
by the geometry and physicochemical properties of the bounding column tests performed in this study. The results demonstrate that
solid, kinematic dispersion causing macroscopic mixing because of the transport process occurred in the experiments is mainly driven
local velocity variations, and diffusion resulting from the molecules by diffusion, confirming the theory on how the double S curves
thermal motion (De Marsily, 1986). The flow rates adopted for the have been generated.
column tests were calibrated to reproduce a velocity field typical of In the hypothesis of a Langmuir adsorption isotherm and a
groundwater systems. In such systems, the relative importance of second order adsorption kinetics, the breakthrough curves can be
the three aforementioned solute transport phenomena is indicated modeled by the Thomas model (Mustafa and Ebrahim, 2010), given
by a dimensionless parameter known as the Peclet Number (Pe). It by Eq., (15):
20 F.E. Arias Arias et al. / Chemosphere 180 (2017) 11e23

Table 3
Double-Thomas model fitting parameters.

m (g) Q kTh_1  104 kTh_2  104 q0_1 q0_2 f Pe EC1/EC2 R2 Double- R2 Single-
(mL min1) (mL min1 mg1) (mL min1 mg1) (mg g1) (mg g1) Thomas Thomas

80 19 2.0 (0.2) 2.3 (0.1) 4.4 (0.2) 11.95 (0.07) 0.33 (0.01) 0.637 0.9971 0.9652
115 19 0.98 (0.01) 0.99 (0.03) 4.5 (0.2) 11.22 (0.06) 0.23 (0.01) 0.577 5.1 0.9980 0.9953
115 15 1.0 (0.2) 0.54 (0.02) 4.9 (0.3) 9.6 (0.1) 0.20 (0.01) 0.455 3.4 0.9961 0.9964
115 10 0.6 (0.1) 1.41 (0.08) 7.7 (0.5) 14.02 (0.04) 0.15 (0.02) 0.303 1.4 0.9975 0.9764

Values in parentheses are the standard deviation of the data.

rate, and tends to be vanishingly small for very low flow rates. It can
1 be argued that, in such a case, the second process is quite indis-
Ct =C0 ¼ (15)
1 þ ekTh C0 t ekTh q0 m=Q tinguishable from the first (the two are quite overlapped) because
the system has enough time to equilibrate under low flux
where, kTh (mL min1 mg1) and q0 (mg g1) are the Thomas conditions.
constant and the maximum adsorption capacity, respectively. As Table 3 shows, the maximum adsorption capacities increases
However, the fitted curves reported in Fig. 6a, clearly evidence as the flow rate decreases, being the other conditions the same. As a
that the Thomas model is not able to reproduce the experimental matter of fact, the overall adsorption capacity, q0_2, assumes values
trend. Actually, strong deviations from the Thomas model occur in close to the batch ones (Table 2).
the intermediate portion of the breakthrough curves. This is due to The contribution of the two processes to the overall adsorption
the fact that this model does not take into account the two pro- can be estimated by the ratio of the exhaustion capacities between
cesses mentioned above, both contributing to the adsorption. Since the first (EC1) and the second process (EC2). The exhaustion ca-
the experimental points describe a double S-shape curve, we tried pacity is defined as the mass of the adsorbate removed per unit
to fit them with a double Thomas model given by Eq. (16): mass of adsorbent at the saturation point (Gupta et al., 2016). It can
be estimated by calculating the area overlaying the breakthrough
f 1f curve up to the exhaustion point (Gupta et al., 1997, 2000;
Ct =C0 ¼ þ
1 þ ekTh 1 C0 t ekTh 1 q0 1 m=Q 1 þ ekTh 2 C0 t
ekTh 2 q0 2 m=Q
Medvidovi c et al., 2008) (Appendix A). If we compare the experi-
(16) ments performed under identical conditions (Table 3 row 2e4), we
find that this ratio is always higher than 1 indicating that the first
where, the new parameter f, was named Active Surface Sites Frac- adsorption process contributes mainly to the overall adsorption.
tion (ASSF). Obviously, if f assumes a value equal to 1 the Eq. (15) However, the EC1/EC2 ratio decreases in time with the flow rate
(Double-Thomas Model) becomes identical to Eq. (14) (Single- (Table 3), indicating that, if the adsorbent bed is allowed to stay in
Thomas Model). This parameter can be mathematically described longer contact with the solution, the second process becomes more
as the difference between the Ct/C0 ratio at the beginning and at the important.
end of the first breakthrough curve while 1-f is the analogous dif-
ference for the second breakthrough curve; kTh_1; kTh_2 and q0_1;
q0_2 are the Thomas constants and the maximum adsorption ca- 4. Conclusions
pacities for the first and second process, respectively. The param-
eter f also takes a clear physical meaning from which its name In conclusion, here we have shown that the Spanish broom, that
derives. Being a number in the 0e1 range, it discriminates the is taken as a typical lignocellulosic material, can be used as adsor-
fraction of Hg(II) species adsorbed by the superficial active sites bent material for mercury removal from contaminated water with
from that adsorbed by the inner ones (1-f). For a given adsorbent removal percentages as high as 86%. Batch experiments revealed
mass, f is a function of the contact time between the aforemen- that the adsorption occurs due to the active carboxyl and hydroxyl
tioned mass and the solution flowing through it. As can be seen in binding sites available on its lignocellulosic surface. Interestingly,
Table 3, the ASSF decreases with decreasing injected flow rates the adsorption dynamic study performed in column under different
(row 2e4). A lower flow rate results in a higher contact time which experimental conditions, revealed, for the first time, an uncon-
allows the ions to reach and involve, in the adsorption process, ventional breakthrough behavior displaying a double S-shape
more inner active sites. Considering hence the experiments per- curve. This has been modeled by a Double-Thomas equation with
formed with the same flow rate and different adsorbent mass, f the introduction of a new parameter, the active surface sites frac-
decreases with the increase of the latter (row 1 and 2). The increase tion (f), which discriminates the fraction of Hg(II) species adsorbed
in mass, for a given volume, of the adsorbent material causes a by the superficial active sites from that adsorbed by the inner ones
density variation of the filter which in turn results in a porosity (1-f). The parameter f is significantly affected by the contact time. In
decrease. The lower porosity reduces the effective transversal area fact, the greater is the time in which the Hg(II) remains in contact
available for the solution flux, resulting in a reduced involvement of with the adsorbent material, the greater is the efficiency of the filter
the superficial active sites. The Double-Thomas Model fitting lines because the inner sites come into play. This finding has therefore
are displayed in Fig. 6b and the related fitting parameters are important implications for the design of filtering devices based on
collected in Table 3. This model better fits the experimental data lignocellulosic materials. In general, this double mechanism, due to
with respect to the Single-Thomas Model, with R2 values always the intraparticle diffusion, suggests that this kind of filter is suitable
larger than 0.996. Interestingly, the Thomas constants associated to for the remediation of aquifers contaminated by Hg(II), because in
the two processes have quite similar values, suggesting that the this context the flow rate and consequently the Peclet number, are
kinetic mechanism undergoing the two processes is the same. very low.
Notably, the breakthrough step of the S-shape curve (f) related to The use of the Spanish Broom has, however, additional ad-
the first process has a tendency to decrease with decreasing flow vantages with respect to other potential lignocellulosic adsorbent
F.E. Arias Arias et al. / Chemosphere 180 (2017) 11e23 21

sources: its high diffusion in many areas of the Earth, and the
very simple and cheap pretreatment process (drying and
milling).
The experimental results are very encouraging, indicating that
the Spanish broom could be a promising material for aquifer
remediation, in those cases in which Hg pollution is observed. This
natural material, thanks to its mechanical properties, could be
adopted, during the implementation of “on site” techniques, inside
filtering devices included within pumping systems or, thanks to its
extremely availability and affordability, by “in situ” techniques such
as Permeable Reactive Barriers (PRB).
Considering the encouraging results obtained in this study, new
experiments involving the remediation of Hg contaminated water
flowing within Spanish brooms filtering devices are planned,
together with the implementation of interpretative models dealing
with the aforementioned working conditions. The need for such an
approach is required by the actual operating situations in which
this material must be used, which are, in most cases, water flowing
conditions through or on the soil.
Fig. A1. Illustration of the graphical integration of the breakthrough curve for the
exhaustion capacities calculation.
Acknowledgments

F. E. A. A. is grateful to the Secretaría de Educacion Superior, Appendix B. Supplementary data


Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovacio n of the Ministerio de Educacio
n of
the Government of Ecuador for funding his Ph.D studies. Supplementary data related to this article can be found at http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2017.03.137.
Appendix A
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