Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 287 (2005) 178–184

www.elsevier.com/locate/jcis

Competitive adsorption of Pb2+, Cu2+, and Cd2+ ions

on microporous titanosilicate ETS-10
Lu Lv, Mei Peng Hor, Fabing Su, X.S. Zhao ∗
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore, 10 Kent Ridge Crescent, 119260 Singapore
Received 8 October 2004; accepted 24 January 2005
Available online 2 March 2005

Abstract
In the present study, the competitive adsorption characteristics of binary and ternary heavy metal ions Pb2+ , Cu2+ , and Cd2+ on micro-
porous titanosilicate ETS-10 were investigated in batch systems. Pure microporous titanosilicate ETS-10 was synthesized with P25 as the
Ti source and characterized by the techniques of X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission-scanning electron microscope (FESEM), nitrogen
adsorption, and ζ -potential. Equilibrium and kinetic adsorption data showed that ETS-10 displays a high selectivity toward one metal in a
two-component or a three-component system with an affinity order of Pb2+ > Cd2+ > Cu2+ . The equilibrium behaviors of heavy metals
species with stronger affinity toward ETS-10 can be described by the Langmuir equation while the adsorption kinetics of the metals can be
well fitted to a pseudo-second-order (PSO) model.
 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Microporous titanosilicate ETS-10; Heavy metal ions; Competitive adsorption; Selectivity

1. Introduction TiO6 octahedra bridged by oxygen atoms. The presence of

Heavy metals such as lead, copper, and cadmium are
released into aquatic environments largely from various
anthropogenic activities and may cause a range of health
problems. Removal of the heavy metal pollutants from
aqueous systems, therefore, has received a considerable
amount of attention. Among the treatment processes avail-
able, ion exchange or adsorption on natural and synthetic
zeolites [1–4] has been widely investigated because the
practical operating conditions are relatively simple while
zeolite adsorbents are relatively cheap and readily avail-
able [5].
ETS-10 is a microporous titanosilicate discovered by En-
gelhard in 1989 [6]. Unlike conventional zeolites, the frame-
work of ETS-10 is constituted from SiO4 tetrahedra and
* Corresponding author. Fax: +65-67791936.
E-mail address: chezxs@nus.edu.sg (X.S. Zhao).
0021-9797/$ – see front matter  2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2005.01.073
each tetravalent Ti atom in an octahedron generates two neg-
ative charges, which are balanced by exchangeable cations
Na+ and K+ [7,8]. Such a unique framework property en-
ables ETS-10 to be a promising ion exchanger for heavy
metal ions, in particular for divalent heavy metals. Previ-
ous studies [9,10] have demonstrated that ETS-10 displays
a rapid adsorption kinetics toward heavy metal Pb2+ ions. In
a recent study [11], we have examined the adsorption behav-
iors of single heavy metal ions on ETS-10 and the possible
adsorption mechanisms.
In general, contaminated water contains more than one
heavy metal. It is thus of more industrial interest to study
the adsorption equilibria and kinetics of multi heavy metal
ions. As a continuation of our effort on developing ETS-10
ion exchanger for heavy metal removal from wastewater and
drinking water, we attempted to examine the competitive ad-
sorption properties of heavy metals Pb2+ , Cu2+ , and Cd2+
on ETS-10 in binary and ternary systems in this work.
 L. Lv et al. / Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 287 (2005) 178–184 179

2. Experimental Table 1
Metal solutions used to study competitive adsorption kinetics
2.1. Synthesis and characterization of ETS-10 System Solution mixture
Binary 20 mmol/L Pb + 20 mmol/L Cu
The synthesis of ETS-10 has been described previ- 20 mmol/L Pb + 14 mmol/L Cu
20 mmol/L Pb + 6 mmol/L Cu
ously [12]. The ETS-10 sample used in this work was
20 mmol/L Pb + 20 mmol/L Cd
identified by using X-ray diffraction (XRD) on a Shimadzu 20 mmol/L Pb + 14 mmol/L Cu
XRD-6000 diffractometer (CuKα radiation) at 40 kV and 20 mmol/L Pb + 6 mmol/L Cu
30 mA with a scanning speed of 0.02◦ /s. Nitrogen adsorp- 20 mmol/L Cu + 20 mmol/L Cd
tion measurement was conducted on a Quantachrome NOVA Ternary 20 mmol/L Pb + 20 mmol/L Cu + 20 mmol/L Cd
1200 system. The size and morphology of the solid particles
were examined by using field emission-scanning electron
microscope (FESEM) on a JOEL JSM-6700F with an ac-
celerating voltage of 15 kV. The electrochemical properties
of the ETS-10 sample as a function of pH were measured
by using ξ -potential technique on a Brookhaven Zeta-plus 4
analyzer in the pH range of 2–10.

2.2. Adsorption of heavy metal ions

Pb2+ , Cu2+ , and Cd2+ solutions were prepared from

Pb(NO3 )2 , Cu(NO3 )2 · 3H2 O, and Cd(NO3 )2 · 4H2 O. The
speciation distributions of the heavy metal ions assayed were
calculated using a MINEQL 4.5+ program [13]. The ad-
sorption equilibrium measurements of single, binary, and
ternary metal ion systems were carried out at 25 ◦ C. About
0.15 g of ETS-10 solid was placed in a 50-mL conical flask
containing 30 mL of a heavy metal solution with an initial
concentration C0 (mM). To avoid metal precipitation at high
pH and the competition by hydrogen ions at low pH, the pH
value of the solution was periodically measured and main-
tained at 5 by using nitric acid (69.5%, ultrapure, Fluka). Fig. 1. XRD pattern, SEM image, and ξ -potential of ETS-10.
The mixture was agitated at 200 rpm on a GFL 3017 or-
bital shaker for 1 h, which was found to be sufficient to metal ions with ICP-AES. The total volume of samples with-
attain uptake equilibrium [9,10]. The equilibrium concentra- drawn was less than 5% of the total volume of the mixture
tion Ce (mM) of the heavy metal ions was measured by using so the effect of sampling could be ignored. The amount of
an inductive-coupled plasma–atomic emission spectrometer heavy metal ions adsorbed at time t (s), qt , was calculated
(ICP-AES) on a Perkin–Elmer ICP Optima 3000DV. The from the mass balance between C0 and the concentration at
amount of heavy metal adsorbed, qe (mmol/g), was calcu- time t (s), Ct .
lated with

qe = VL (C0 − Ce )/1000m, (1)

where VL refers to the volume of solution (mL), m is the
mass of ETS-10 sample (g).
For kinetic measurements, 2.5 g of dried ETS-10 was
added into 250 mL deionized water under stirring. The pH
of the mixture was acidified by using nitric acid to a value
of 5.8. Then 250 mL of a solution containing multiple heavy
metal ions with the initial concentrations shown in Table 1
was added to the ETS-10 suspension with a final pH of about
5.0 and a batch factor of 200 mL/g. Then 2–3 mL of the mix-
ture was withdrawn at a given time interval by using a 5-mL
pipette and rapidly filtered through a 0.45-µm nylon mem-
brane filter. The filtrate was collected in a sample vial for
subsequent measurements of the concentrations of the heavy
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Characterization of ETS-10
The XRD pattern, SEM image, and ξ -potential profile of
the ETS-10 sample used in this study are shown in Fig. 1.
The XRD pattern is identical to that of ETS-10 materials
reported in the literature [7], showing that the sample is a
highly pure ETS-10. Nanosized crystals of less than 500 nm
in size with a bipyramid particle morphology can be seen
from the SEM image, confirming that this is a pure ETS-10
phase [12]. Such nanosized ETS-10 particles are believed to
favor the adsorption kinetics of heavy metal ions. The spe-
cific surface area calculated from Brunauer–Emmett–Teller
180 L. Lv et al. / Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 287 (2005) 178–184
Fig. 2. Species distribution diagrams versus pH for (a) 10 mM lead nitrates,
(b) 10 mM cadmium nitrates, and (c) 10 mM copper nitrates.
(BET) equation at the relative pressure range of 0.05–0.15
was around 269 m2 /g. The ξ -potential profile shows a neg-
atively charged surface of ETS-10 in the pH range of 2–10,
which enables ETS-10 to adsorb heavy metal ions. Because
of the presence of lattice defects Ti–OH and Si–OH, lower-
ing pH resulted in reduced surface-negative charges because
of the protonation of the defects by protons. On the other
hand, increasing pH led to a more negatively charged surface
because OH− ions took protons from the surface hydroxyl
groups.
3.2. Speciation of aqueous metal ions
The speciation of metal ions in an aqueous solution sig-
nificantly affects their interaction with a solid adsorbent. In
a dilute solution, Pb2+ , Cd2+ , and Cu2+ are mainly present
in the form of mononuclear hydrolysis products, but their
species distributions are related to many factors, such as
pH, ionic strength, anions, and metal ion concentration. The
metal solutions used in this study were prepared from nitrate
compounds. Thus, it would be expected that the speciation
diagrams of Pb2+ , Cd2+ , and Cu2+ in the presence of NO− 3
are not the same to those in the presence of OH− [14–16].
Fig. 2 shows the species distributions of the three metals ver-
sus pH at the metal ionic concentration of 10 mM. It can
be seen that at pH < 5, Pb2+ , Cd2+ , and Cu2+ species are
totally present in ionic states, namely Me2+ and MeNO+ 3,
where Me represents Pb, Cd, and Cu. With increasing pH,
Pb2+ and Cu2+ species start to hydrolyze and entirely pre-
cipitate into Pb(OH)2 and Cu(OH)2 at pH > 6, whereas pre-
cipitation of Cd(OH)2 starts at a higher pH value. Therefore,
under the experimental conditions used in this study to mea-
sure adsorption equilibria and kinetics (pH 5), divalent metal
ions (Pb2+ , Cd2+ , and Cu2+ ) are believed to be the ma-
jor species with a small amount of PbNO+ +
3 , CdNO3 , and
+
CuNO3 .
3.3. Competitive adsorption isotherms of binary or ternary
metals ions
The competitive adsorption isotherms of the metal ions
in binary mixtures Pb2+ /Cu2+ , Pb2+ /Cd2+ , and Cu2+ /Cd2+
and in a ternary mixture Pb2+ /Cu2+ /Cd2+ on ETS-10 are
shown in Fig. 3. According to our previous studies [10,11],
the adsorption isotherm of a single metal on ETS-10 fits the
Langmuir model very well. In the present study, the Lang-
muir isotherm,
qm,i bi Ce,i
qe,i = , (2)
1 + bi Ce,i
was also used to predict some of the experimental isotherms,
where qe,i is the adsorbed amount of heavy metals, qm,i is
the maximum amount adsorbed in mmol/g, bi is the Lang-
muir constant in L/mmol, Ce,i is the equilibrium concen-
tration in mM, and i refers to the metal species with higher
affinity to ETS-10 in a competitive adsorption system.
To check the accuracy of the theoretical calculations, an
average relative error (ARE%), defined as
1
qexp,i − qcal,i
n
ARE% = % (3)
n qexp,i
i=1
was used, where qexp,i is the experimental data of metal
species i at the concentration of Ce,i , qcal,i is the predicted
value from the Langmuir model, and n is the number of the
experimental runs. The Langmuir model parameters of the
strongest adsorbed metal species, the correlation coefficient
(R 2 ), and the calculated errors are tabulated in Table 2.
As can be seen from Fig. 3 and Table 2, in Pb2+ /Cu2+
and Pb2+ /Cd2+ binary mixture systems, Pb2+ ions always
favorably adsorbed on ETS-10 over Cu2+ and Cd2+ ions and
 L. Lv et al. / Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 287 (2005) 178–184 181

Fig. 3. Competitive adsorption isotherms of binary and ternary metal ions on ETS-10: (a) Pb2+ /Cu2+ , (b) Pb2+ /Cd2+ , (c) Cd2+ /Cu2+ , and (d) Pb2+ /Cd2+ /
Cu2+ .

Table 2 and Cd2+ are weaker competitive species. Fig. 3c shows that
Langmuir parameters for heavy metal ions Pb(II) and Cd(II) in a binary or in the Cu2+ /Cd2+ binary system, Cd2+ favorably adsorbed
a ternary system on ETS-10 over Cu2+ , and its experimental isotherm fits to
Metal species qm,i bi R2 ARE% the Langmuir equation very well. The maximum uptake ca-
(mmol/g) (L/mmol) pacity of Cd2+ was measured to be about 0.87 mmol/g. The
Pb2+ in Pb2+ /Cu2+ system 1.22 14.1 0.990 −3.65 adsorption behavior of Cu2+ in the Cu2+ /Cd2+ binary sys-
Pb2+ in Pb2+ /Cd2+ system 1.24 9.26 0.991 2.56 tem was similar to that of Cd2+ in the Pb2+ /Cd2+ system
Cd2+ in Cd2+ /Cu2+ system 0.87 9.04 0.984 4.23 and to that of Cu2+ in the Pb2+ /Cu2+ system.
Pb2+ in Pb2+ /Cd2+ /Cu2+ system 1.17 8.22 0.990 1.35
In the ternary metal system (see Fig. 3d), the competi-
tive adsorption isotherms of Pb2+ and Cd2+ ions exactly
duplicated those in the binary Pb2+ /Cd2+ system, whereas
its maximum adsorptive capacity was measured to be around only a small amount of Cu2+ was adsorbed by ETS-10
1.22 mmol/g. It can be seen from the correlation coefficients throughout the entire equilibrium concentrations assayed,
(R 2 > 0.99) and the average relative errors (ARE% < 5%) showing that the competitive adsorption abilities among the
that the uptake isotherms of Pb2+ are in good agreement heavy metal ions for the adsorption sites of ETS-10 follow
with the Langmuir model. It is also seen from Figs. 3a and 3b Pb2+ > Cd2+ > Cu2+ . This is related to their hydrated radii
that at low equilibrium concentrations of Pb2+ , the adsorp- and hydration energies [11], which will be discussed later.
tion amounts of Cu2+ and Cd2+ reached a maximum and
then leveled off with increase in equilibrium concentration, 3.4. Adsorption kinetics
while the adsorption amount of Pb2+ increased as the equi-
librium concentration of Pb2+ was increased. At low con- The competitive adsorption kinetics of binary systems
centrations of the metal ions, Pb2+ species occupies part of Cu2+ /Pb2+ and Cd2+ /Pd2+ with different ratios of ini-
the ion-exchange sites of ETS-10 so that some Cu2+ or Cd2+ tial concentrations of Cu2+ /Pb2+ and Cd2+ /Pd2+ (1.0, 0.7,
ions are able to adsorb on ETS-10. With increasing concen- and 0.3) and binary system Cd2+ /Cu2+ and ternary system
tration, Pb2+ ions in solution compete with the other metal Cd2+ /Cu2+ /Pb2+ with an equal molar ratio are shown in
ions and displace those Cu2+ or Cd2+ ions having adsorbed Figs. 4–6. In the Cu2+ /Pb2+ binary system (see Fig. 4), it can
on ETS-10, resulting in a decrease of the amount adsorbed be seen that the uptake of Pb2+ ions was rapid, essentially
(qe ) of Cu2+ or Cd2+ ions. This characterizes the compet- attaining equilibrium within 5 min, irrespective of the ratios
itive uptake between Pb2+ and Cu2+ or Cd2+ , where Cu2+ of initial concentrations of Cu2+ /Pb2+ . The uptake kinetics
182 L. Lv et al. / Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 287 (2005) 178–184
Fig. 4. Competitive adsorption kinetics in Cu2+ /Pb2+ system at differ-
ent initial concentration ratios of Cu2+ /Pb2+ (C0 of Pb2+ = 10 mM,
V /m = 200 mL/g).
Fig. 5. Competitive adsorption kinetics in Cd2+ /Pb2+ system at differ-
ent initial concentration ratios of Cd2+ /Pb2+ (C0 of Pb2+ = 10 mM,
V /m = 200 mL/g).
of Cu2+ species, on the other hand, behaved strangely—
reaching a maximum at the early stage and then decreas-
ing as the contact time was prolonged. Such an adsorption
behavior indicates the possible underlying adsorption mech-
anism: upon contact of the liquid with the solid, both Pb2+
and Cu2+ ions adsorbed on the surface of ETS-10; because
of the stronger affinity of ETS-10 toward Pb2+ ions over
Cu2+ ions, the former competitively replaced Cu2+ ions that
had previously adsorbed onto ETS-10, resulting in the de-
sorption of Cu2+ ions into the solution. Eventually, Pb2+
predominately adsorbed on ETS-10 over Cu2+ . Although an
increase in the initial concentrations of Cu2+ ions gave rise
to a decrease in the adsorptive capacity of Pb2+ , there was
no obvious difference in the competitive adsorption behav-
iors of both metal species.
Similar uptake profiles were observed in the other binary
systems and the ternary system. For instance, in Pb2+ /Cd2+
and Cd2+ /Cu2+ /Pb2+ systems Pb2+ is the favorably ad-
sorbed species while in the Cd2+ /Cu2+ system, Cd2+ is
the favorably adsorbed species. If metals are competing for
the same active sites on an adsorbent, those metals with
Fig. 6. Competitive adsorption kinetics of (a) Cd2+ /Cu2+ , and
(b) Pb2+ /Cd2+ /Cu2+ systems (C0 of individual metal ions = 10 mM,
V /m = 200 mL/g).
a stronger affinity can replace others with a weaker affin-
ity [17]. Therefore, the above kinetic data indicate that the
adsorption affinity of Pb2+ species to ETS-10 is the highest
among the three metals studied, followed by that of Cd2+
ions, and then Cu2+ ions, which is in accordance with the
order observed in the equilibrium experiments.
The uptake mechanism of a single heavy metal on ETS-
10 is complex as discussed previously [11]. In a binary or
ternary system, competition among H+ , Na+ , K+ , and the
heavy metal ions for the ion exchange and adsorption sites
of ETS-10 may be cooperative, which can be described by
the following three general equations,
2S–M + A2+ or B2+ ↔ S2 –A or S2 –B + 2M+ , (4)
S2 –B + A2+ ↔ S2 –A + B2+ , (5)
2S–OH + A2+ or B2+ → (S–O− )2 A or (S–O− )2 B + 2H+ ,
(6)
where S are the ion exchange sites and S–OH are the de-
fect sites of ETS-10 framework, M+ refers to the ion-
changeable alkali metal ions, i.e., Na+ and K+ , A2+ rep-
resents a heavy metal species with a stronger affinity to the
adsorbent than B2+ . The variation of the number of active
sites before reaching equilibrium can be described using a
pseudo-second-order (PSO) reaction kinetics [18]
d(S)t
= k[(S)0 − (S)t ]2 , (7)
dt
where (S)0 is the number of active sites available on the
ETS-10 framework at equilibrium and (S)t is the number
 L. Lv et al. / Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 287 (2005) 178–184 183

Table 3 3.5. Selectivity

Parameters of pseudo-second-order kinetics for the more strongly adsorbed
metal species in a binary or ternary system with different initial concentra-
tion ratios of the metal species
For a metal couple A/B, the ratio of qA (t)/qB (t) is used
to indicate selectivity (S) [19],
Initial concentration ratio k2 qe R2
(g/(mmol s)) (mmol/g) qA (t)
S= , (10)
Cu2+ /Pb2+ system qB (t)
1.0 0.017 1.21 0.988
0.7 0.023 1.22 0.991 where qA (t) and qB (t) refer to the amounts adsorbed of the
0.3 0.029 1.30 0.992 species with a stronger and a weaker affinity toward an ad-
Cd2+ /Pb2+ system sorbent at time t, respectively. In the case of a ternary system
1.0 0.015 1.21 0.991 A/B/C, the selectivity is defined as
0.7 0.022 1.24 0.991
0.3 0.024 1.29 0.990 qA (t)
S= , (11)
Cu2+ /Cd2+ system
qB (t)
1.0 0.097 0.81 0.993 qA (t)
S= , (12)
Cu2+ /Cd2+ /Pb2+ system qC (t)
1.0 0.016 1.20 0.993 where qA (t) refers to the amount adsorbed of the species
with the strongest affinity to the adsorbent, and qB (t) and
qC (t) represent the amounts adsorbed of species B and C at
of active sites occupied on the ETS-10 framework at time t, time t, respectively.
and k is the rate constant. Fig. 7 depicts the variation of the selectivity versus the
The uptake rate depends on the amount of metal ions contact time. It can be seen that ETS-10 is highly selective
adsorbed at time t (qt ) and the metal ions adsorbed at equi- for one metal in the tested binary and ternary systems. Over-
librium (qe ). So the kinetic rate equation can be written as all, the increasing selectivity for Pb2+ /Cu2+ , Pb2+ /Cd2+ ,
and Cd2+ /Cu2+ ion pairs with contact time reveals that Pb2+
dqt ions are the most preferentially adsorbed species on ETS-10
= k2 (qe − qt )2 . (8) among the three metal ions assayed, followed by Cd2+ ions
dt
and finally Cu2+ . Consequently, the selectivities for Pb2+
Separating the variables and integrating using the boundary versus the other two metal ions were all greater than 10 at
conditions (t = 0, qt = 0; t = t, qt = qt ) yields equilibrium and they were remarkably affected by the ini-
tial concentration ratios of the metal ions. In both binary
t 1 t systems Cu2+ /Pb2+ and Cd2+ /Pb2+ (see Figs. 7a and 7b),
= 2
+ , (9)
qt k2 q e qe the final selectivities at the initial concentration ratio of 0.3
reached about 60 for the Pb2+ /Cu2+ system and 25 for the
where k2 and qe can be obtained from the intercept and Pb2+ /Cd2+ system, which were much greater than those at
slope of a plot of t/qt versus t. The so-derived parameters the initial concentration ratios of 0.7 and 1.0. This is ex-
together with the correlation coefficient (R 2 ) are tabulated pected because selectivity is concentration dependent [20].
in Table 3. The simulation curves using the PSO model for As described in Eqs. (4) and (5), increasing the concen-
some metal species are also included in Figs. 4–6. It can be tration of species (B) will lead to the two reactions mov-
seen that the adsorption kinetic data of the metal species ing backward, resulting in a decrease of selectivity. In the
with a stronger affinity to ETS-10 can be well represented case of binary system Cu2+ /Cd2+ , the selectivity was ob-
by the PSO model and all of the correlation coefficients are served to be about 3 at equilibrium, which is much lower
close to unity, suggesting the applicability of the PSO ki- than that of systems Pb2+ /Cu2+ and Pb2+ /Cd2+ . The ob-
netic model to the binary or the ternary mixture systems. served selectivity differences from one metal to another and
In addition, the values of qe for the metal species with a from one system to another are related to many factors, such
greater affinity to ETS-10 obtained by modeling are close to as hydrated ionic radius and hydration energy of the heavy
the maximum uptake capacities obtained from the Langmuir metals. It is known that Pb2+ has a coordination number
equation, demonstrating that both equations can be used to of 6, thus forming octahedral complexes in solution. How-
calculate the maximum amount adsorbed. It can also be seen ever, Cu2+ and Cd2+ have a coordination number of 4, thus
from Table 3 that the constant k2 for Pb2+ ions in binary sys- forming tetrahedral complexes in solution [21]. As a con-
tems Cu2+ /Pb2+ and Cd2+ /Pb2+ was decreasing with the sequence, it is likely that the movement of hydrated Cu2+
increase in the initial concentration ratios. This is proba- and Cd2+ in the pores of ETS-10 is stereo-chemically hin-
bly caused by the high concentrations of Cu2+ or Cd2+ , dered [19]. On the other hand, it is known that ETS-10
which slowed down the adsorption rate of Pb2+ ions on compromises 12-membered ring channels with a window
ETS-10. opening size of 4.9 × 7.6 Å, which are straight along [100]
184 L. Lv et al. / Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 287 (2005) 178–184
Fig. 7. Selectivity profiles for (a) Pb2+ /Cu2+ , (b) Pb2+ /Cd2+ , (c) Cd2+ /
Cu2+ , and Pb2+ /Cd2+ /Cu2+ systems.
and [010] directions and crooked along the direction of dis-
order [7]. However, the hydrated heavy metal ions all have
a diameter (Pb2+ 8.02 Å; Cd2+ 8.52 Å; Cu2+ 8.38 Å [22])
larger than the pore-opening size of ETS-10. It is believed
that partial dehydration of the hydrated heavy metal ions
must have occurred in order to adsorb on the surface of
ETS-10. So Pb2+ species with the lowest hydration energy
(1481 kJ/mol) among the three metals assayed, followed by
Cd2+ (1807 kJ/mol) and Cu2+ (2100 kJ/mol) [23], may
facilitate the hydrated Pb2+ ions more easily entering the
channel of ETS-10 than the other two metals. Therefore, the
selectivity for Pb2+ /Cu2+ is greatest, followed by those for
Pb2+ /Cd2+ and Cd2+ /Cu2+ .
4. Conclusions
The competitive adsorption ability of heavy metal ions
Pb2+ , Cd2+ , and Cu2+ in a binary or a ternary system on
microporous titanosilicate ETS-10 follows Pb2+ > Cd2+ >
Cu2+ . Such behaviors are determined by the hydrated ionic
radii and the hydration energies of the heavy metal species.
The selectivity for Pb2+ in the adsorption systems was ob-
served to be above 10. The uptake equilibrium and kinetics
of Pb2+ in a binary or a ternary system on ETS-10 can be
described by the Langmuir isotherm and the pseudo-second-
order kinetics model, respectively.
Acknowledgments
We thank NUS for financial support. L.L. thanks NUS for
offering a scholarship.
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