Preparation and characterization of cationic surfactant modified zeolite adsorbent material for adsorption of organic and inorganic industrial pollutants

Abstract The haxadecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (HDTMA-Br) surfactant was immobilized on the external surface of the zeolite to modify the negative charge and hydrophilicity of surface properties of zeolite. X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), high-resolution scanning electron microscopy (HR-SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), BET surface area measurement, pore volume measurement, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), zeta potential measurement and hydrophobicity measurement were employed to characterize the surface modified and neat zeolite. The removal efficiency of the surfactant modified zeolite through adsorption of acid blue dye and chromium(VI) was investigated by using batch adsorption experiments. The effect of important parameters such as adsorbent dosage, pH, temperature, contact time and initial pollutant concentrations was investigated. The acid blue dye and chromium(VI) was adsorbed significantly on the cationic surfactant modified zeolite. The correlation coefficient and the normalized standard deviation value shows that the equilibrium isotherms fit well to Langmuir isotherm model for adsorption of acid blue dye and Freundlich isotherm model for adsorption of chromium(VI). The adsorption kinetics is well described by pseudo-first order and pseudo-second order nonlinear kinetic model for adsorption of acid blue dye and Cr(VI), respectively.