• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.95-105
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• 2009

Systematic studies are performed for arsenic adsorption on synthesized lepidocrocite. The synthesized lepidocrocite with high surface area of $94.8\;g/m^2$ has shown that the point of zero charge(PZC) is 6.57 determined by potentiometric titration, suggestive of high capacity of arsenic removal. Results show that arsenite[As(III)] uptake by synthesized lepidocrocite is greater than that of arsenate[As(V)] at pH $2{\sim}12$, indicating that the lepidocrocite has high affinity toward arsenite rather than arsenate. Adsorption of arsenate decreases with increasing pH from 2 to 12, whereas arsenite sorption increases until pH 8.0, and then decreases dramatically with increasing pH, suggesting that changes in surface charge of the lepidocrocite as a function of pH playa important role in aresinc uptake by the lepidocrocite. Upon kinetic experiments, our results demonstrate that both arsenite and arsenate sorption on the lepidocrocite increases rapidly for the first 4 h followed by little changes during the duration of the experiment, showing that adsorption plays a key role in aresenic uptake by the lepidocrocite. Our results also show that power function and elovich models are the best fit for the adsorption kinetics of arsenite and aesenate on the lepidocrocite.