Fired clay, an effective natural adsorbent for printing developer purifying

Abstract

The present work was undertaken to investigate the feasibility of low-cost adsorbents: pure fired clay, C system, and newly designed fired clay with the addition of 5 mass% of polyethylene glycol 600, MC system, for the removal of Zn(II) ions from a waste printing developer. The experiments were performed at laboratory batch mode. The Freundlich, Langmuir, Dubinin-Kaganer-Radushkevich (DKR) and Temkin adsorption isotherms were used to evaluate the trend of Zn(II) ion adsorption. The characteristic parameters for each isotherm, as well as their related correlation coefficients, were determined. The values of correlation coefficient (R2) indicated the following order of the isotherm models: Freundlich > DKR > Temkin. The Langmuir model did not fit the data. The study showed that the modified fired clay, MC, has a great potential (up to 93.5%) for the removal of Zn(II) ions from the waste printing developer. Therefore, this newly designed clayey adsorbent could be an effective and economical alternative for the purification of waste printing developers.