The feasibility of using chitin as an adsorbent for cadmium (II) was examined. The adsorption characteristics were studied as a function of solution pH, temperature, contact time et. al., Maximum uptake amount of cadmium (II) was estimated to 93.9 mg/g·chitin by saturated capacity method at pH 5.41 in the HAc-NaAc system. The isotherm data for cadmium (II) at pH 5.41 fitted well to a Langmuir equation with a sorption capacity of 94.3 mg/g·chitin which was in accordance with the maximum uptake amount by means of the saturation method. The apparent adsorption rate constant was k288K = 3.34×10-5s-1, k298K = 4.60×10-5s-1, k308K = 6.35×10-5s-1 and k318K = 9.89×10-5s-1. The apparent activation energy was 63.1 kJ/mol. Thermodynamic parameters, ΔG298K was calculated to be -19.5 kJ/mol, ΔH and ΔS were found to be 10.6 kJ/mol and 101 J/mol·K, respectively. Adsorption mechanism was also proposed using infrared spectroscopy technique(IR).


Chunhua Xiong ,