Examination of current adsorption models for Pb(II) and Cu(II) adsorption onto Fe3O4@Mg2Al-NO3 Layered Double Hydroxide in aqueous solution

The adsorption of Pb(II) and Cu(II) onto Fe3O4@Mg2Al-NO3 Layered Double Hydroxide (LDH) as a function of Fe3O4@Mg2Al-NO3 LDH concentration was studied. An adsorbent concentration effect (Cs effect), namely adsorption isotherm declines as adsorbent concentration (Cs) increases, was observed. The experimental data were fitted to the adsorption models including the classic Freundlich model, the metastable-equilibrium adsorption theory, the flocculation model, the power function model, and the surface component activity model. The results show that the Freundlich-type metastable-equilibrium adsorption equation, the power function model, and the Freundlich-surface component activity equation can adequately describe the Cs effect observed in the batch adsorption tests as all the correlation coefficients (R2) of the nonlinear plots are higher than 0.96. In other words, their intrinsic parameters simulated from the experimental data are independent of Cs value. It is considered that the Freundlich-surface component activity equation is the best model to describe the Cs effect of the studied adsorption systems by Akaike Information Criterion evaluation criterion.