Adsorption of di-ethyl-phthalate from aqueous solutions with surfactant-coated nano/microsized alumina

The different adsorption characteristics of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)-coated nano/microsized alumina systems for di-ethyl-phthalate (DEP) were studied in this paper. The investigations were carried out in a series of batch experiments under different solution conditions such as SDS concentration, pH value, ionic strength and temperature. Freundlich equation was used for evaluating the influences of various experimental conditions on the adsorption process. The Freundlich constants indicated that SDS-coated nanosized alumina had a greater adsorption affinity and capacity than SDS-coated microsized alumina; kinetics study results of pesudo-second-order rate equation proved that SDS-coated nanosized alumina had a higher adsorption rate. The experimental results showed that SDS-coated nanosized alumina was more effective and suitable for adsorbing DEP in water; furthermore, the feasibility of this method can also be a useful guidance for adsorbing other hydrophobic organic contaminants in water.