Goethite, especially biogenic goethite, has high specific surface area and great capacity for the adsorption of many contaminants including metal ions and organic chelates. Chromium is a redox actively toxic metal ion that exists as either Cr^Ⅲ or Cr^Ⅵ in nature, and as such it is essential to understand its behavior of adsorption on natural goethite mineralized by iron bacteria, as Gallionella and Leptothrix in water body. The adsorption of Cr^3＋ and Cr^Ⅵ on naturally biomineralized goethite is studied in this paper. The results show that both Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption isothermal models are able to accurately describe the adsorption of these two ions. Investigation of SEM/EDS, TEM/EDS indicates that the two ions do not adsorb homogeneously on goethite owing to the different microstructures of goethite, and that the microspherical goethite has a greater adsorption capacity for chromium ions than the helical one. XPS data show that redox reaction of chromium on the surface of biomineralized goethite takes place in the adsorption of both Cr^3＋ and Cr^Ⅵ. The CrvI adsorbed on biogoethite is much easier to transform into CrIII than the oxidization of Cr^Ⅲ on the bio-goethite.
SUN ZhenyaZHU ChunshuiHUANG JiangboGONG WenqiCHEN HeshengMU Shanbin
