Enhanced removal of ammonia nitrogen from rare earth wastewater by NaCl modified vermiculite: Performance and mechanism

Wastewater from rare earth mining (WREM) is very harmful to environment and human health due to its high concentration of ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N). It is therefore necessary and urgent to find a low-cost and convenient technique to remove high concentration of NH3-N from WREM. In this study, Natural powdered vermiculite (NV) was modified with seven sodium chloride (NaCl) solutions, and seven kinds of sodium chloride modified vermiculite (Na-V) were obtained. The NH3-N adsorption performance of Na-V is greatly improved compared with NV. Among them, vermiculite modified with 180 g/L NaCl yielded the highest ammonium adsorption capacity (Qm, 11.569 mg/g), which was 63.43% higher than NZ (Qm, 7.079 mg/g). The characterizations of 180-Na-V confirmed the removal mechanism of NH3-N that the improved capacity of modified vermiculite was attributed to its higher mesoporous volume and ion-exchange capacity, which are the result of sodium-ion exchange and Interlayer effect from high concentration of NaCl. The adsorption isotherms and kinetics were respectively best consistent with Langmuir model and the pseudo-second-order (PSO) model. The adsorption capacity (3.808 mg/g) of vermiculite after 5 cycles could still maintain 75.09% of the initial adsorption capacity (5.071 mg/g). A large amount of Na-V had little effect on pH of water, which meet the requirements of practical application. Including pH, dosage, coexisting ions, the effects of other factors on ammonium adsorption were also determined. This study provides a new method for vermiculite to remove high concentration of NH3-N.