Plasma O$_{2}$ modifies the structure of synthetic zeolite-A to improve the removal of cadmium ions from aqueous solutions

Authors : Alaa FAHMY, Ahmed ELZAREF, Hanan YOUSSEF, Hassan SHEHATA, Magdy WASSEL, Jörg FRIEDRICH, Fabienne PONCINEPAILLARD, Dominique DEBARNOT

Pages : 172-184

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Publication Date : 0000-00-00

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :The present study addresses the removal of cadmium ions insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(Cdinsert ignore into journalissuearticles values(II);); from aqueous solutions at a pH of 7.5 using zeolite-A activated by exposure to oxygen plasma. The activation process was performed over a wide range of plasma powers insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(10, 20, 30, and 40 W); and exposure times insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(30 to 360 s);. Oxygen plasma cannot chemically modify zeolite to a considerable extent, but it can clean the surface, open blocked pores, and induce the formation of additional OH groups via exposure to humidity in ambient air. Therefore, Cd$^{+2}$ ion removal is increased by approximately 10% with the plasma treatments. Infrared-attenuated total reflectance spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and energy dispersive spectroscopy were applied to analyze the changes in the surface structure and properties of the samples.
Keywords : Cadmium removal, water treatment, zeolite A, oxygen plasma, zeolite modification