Arsenite and chromate sequestration onto ferrihydrite, siderite and goethite nanostructured minerals: Isotherms from flow-through reactor experiments and XAS measurements

International audienceSorption isotherms remain a major tool to describe and predict the mobility of pollutants in natural and an-thropogenic environments, but they are typically determined by independent batch experiments. In the present study, the sequestration of As(III), Cr(VI) and competitive As(III)-Cr(VI) on/in 6L-ferrihydrite, siderite and goethite nanostructured minerals was reinvestigated using stirred flow-through reactor experiments. Herein, sorption isotherms were particularly determined from breakthrough curves for inert and reactive tracers monitored simultaneously in a single percolation experiment. In complement, X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) was used to identify As sorption sites on 6L-ferrihydrite and goethite. As expected, the minerals have high potential to remove As and Cr from water (siderite = ferrihydrite (about 60 mg/g) > goethite (20 mg/g)). As and Cr sorption isotherms were modelled with a Langmuir model, and with a sigmoidal Hill model in the case of the competitive sorption. XAS measurements have revealed that As(III) was partially oxidized (up to 22%) in the competitive system with chromate oxyanion Cr(VI). As(III) sorbed on ferrihydrite and goethite adopted edge-sharing and corner sharing complex geometries. Nowadays, a new class of adsorbing phases is being developed https://doi