Speaker
Dr
Sneh Jain
(Loughborough University)
Description
Heavy metals present in the environment such as cadmium are considered harmful due to their toxicity. Adsorption-desorption reactions of metals from aqueous solutions to the soil play an important role in influencing the accumulation and transport of metal contaminants. These are affected by the surface and chemical properties of the soil components.
Sorption and desorption of Cd2+ has been examined on a series of clays bentonite, illite, illite-smectite, kaolin and montmorillonite through γ-spectroscopy as a function of pH and ionic strength. Experimental data acquired for the systems studied have been used to determine the isotherms. The order of increasing cadmium adsorption onto the clays in the absence of organic matter has been found to be:
illite<≈ kaolin< montmorillonite< illite-smectite< bentonite
Further, to gain mechanistic insights to the sorption and desorption processes NMR and XRD have been used to probe these systems.
Primary author
Dr
Sneh Jain
(Loughborough University)
Co-authors
Ms
Maria Charalambous
(Loughborough University)
Dr
Nick Evans
(Loughborough University)
