Coal fly ash supported nZnO for the sorption of triphenyltin chloride

A laboratory study was performed to study the effects of various operating factors, viz. adsorbent dose, contact time, solution pH, stirring speed, initial concentration and temperature on the adsorption of triphenyltin chloride (TPT) onto coal fly ash supported nZnO (CFAZ). The adsorption capacity increases with increase in the adsorbent amount, contact time, pH, stirring speed and initial TPT concentration, and decrease with increase in the solution temperature. The adsorption data have been analyzed by Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin and Dubinin-Radushkevich (D-R) adsorption models to determine the mechanistic parameters associated with the adsorption process while the kinetic data were analyzed by pseudo first-order, pseudo second-order, Elovich, fractional power and intraparticle diffusivity kinetic models. The thermodynamic parameters of the process were also determined. The results of this study show that 0.5 g of CFAZ was able to remove up to 99.60% of TPT from contaminated natural seawater at 60 min contact time, stirring speed of 200 rpm and at a pH of 8. It was also found that the equilibrium and kinetic data fitted better to Freundlich and pseudo second-order models, respectively. It can therefore be concluded that CFAZ can be effectively used for shipyard process wastewater treatment