Chloride ion entrapment by calcined layered double hydroxides

Purpose Magnesium-aluminum layered double hydroxides (LDH) with a platelet-like morphology were synthesized through a modified co-precipitation method. The purpose of this paper is to investigate calcined Mg-Al-CO3 LDH (CLDH) as chloride ion traps. Design/methodology/approach The morphology and chemical composition of the synthesized materials were studied through UHR-SEM, EDS, FT-IR and XRD. The chloride ion adsorption was confirmed by XRD; the characteristic diffraction peaks of the reconstructed LDH structure were revealed, similar to the one before the thermal treatment process. The effect of varying the experimental conditions on the chloride ion adsorption, such as the initial target-ion concentration, the adsorbent material dosage, the solution temperature and the solution pH was also investigated. Findings The experimental data fitting revealed that the Langmuir equation is a better model on the basis of correlation coefficients (R2) and that the pseudo-second kinetic model can satisfactorily describe the chloride ion uptake. Originality/value The ability of Mg-Al CLDH to recover their layered structure upon exposure to aqueous sodium chloride solutions with concentrations up to 0.3 M (10,636 mg/L) through the chloride adsorption and the simultaneous rehydration process is clearly demonstrated.