Tailored design of a novel composite foam of sodium alginate used for fluoride ion removal

Abstract Fluoride is an essential micronutrient for humans. Nonetheless, when the amount of fluoride ion is greater than required, it will cause skeletal fluorosis and dental fluorosis to threaten human health. In this paper, a series of sodium alginate (SA)-based foam materials are prepared by freeze-drying technique and anchored with the nano-activated alumina (nAl2O3) in the SA to obtain a novel adsorbent of SA-nAl2O3 foam used for fluoride ions removal. The SA-nAl2O3 foam morphology was further explored and confirmed that nAl2O3 existed stably in the SA. The adsorption results showed that the maximal fluoride ion adsorption capacity was 5.09 mg/g with 20 mg/L fluorine solutions at a pH of 3. The adsorption isotherm fitted adequately to the Langmuir isotherm model, which demonstrated that the adsorption process is closer to monolayer adsorption. The adsorption kinetics behavior of SA-nAl2O3 foam was described by a pseudo-second-order model, and the adsorption process occurred by chemisorption. Adsorption thermodynamics analysis emphasized that the adsorption process was spontaneous and endothermic. The main mechanism of the foam is ion exchange. The SA-nAl2O3 foam exhibited excellent regeneration performance and stability after three cycles.