Physicochemical and geochemical characteristics of raw marine sediment used in fluoride removal.

The study was directed to use raw marine sediment in the removal of fluoride. The sediment was mainly composed of calcite, magnesium-calcite and aragonite. The effect of the initial fluoride concentration, pH and the contact time was studied at room temperature to determine the adsorption capacity of the sediment. The optimum adsorption capacity was observed at pH values of 5 and 6.2. The adsorption process was fast and the equilibrium was reached within 60 min. For fluoride solutions of 10 and 15 mg/L, 100% removal was obtained onto 0.1 g of raw marine sediment. Pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order, Elovich and intra-particle diffusion equations were used to deduce the kinetic data. The adsorption mechanism was rather complex process, and the intra-particle diffusion was not the only rate-controlling step. The equilibrium data were tested using thirteen isotherm models (Langmuir, Freundlich, Tempkin, Dubinin-Radushkevich, Erunauer-Emmett-Teller, Flory-Huggins, Non-ideal competitive adsorption, Generalized, Redlich Peterson, Khan, Sips, Koble Corrigan and Toth isotherm equations). Five different error functions were applied. For the sorption of fluoride process, the calculated activation energy and the free energy were of 0.707 and -14.491 kJ /mol, respectively.