Adsorption behavior of Congo red from aqueous solution on La2O3-doped TiO2 nanotubes

Composite adsorbent, TiO2 nanotubes doped by La2O3, were prepared and characterized by IR, XRD, SEM, and XPS, their adsorption properties were investigated in the aqueous solution employing Congo red as the target pollutant. The adsorption experiments exhibited that adsorption equilibrium of Congo red over the adsorbent was rapidly achieved within 10 min, and the adsorption kinetics was in accord with the pseudo-second-order kinetics model. Moreover, intraparticle diffusion was not the determining step in the entire adsorption process, and the adsorption belonged to a chemical adsorption. Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin and Dubinin–Radushkevich isothermal equations were utilized to fit the equilibrium adsorption data, in which the Temkin equation was verified to fit the adsorption behaviors most satisfactorily with the correlation coefficient of 0.998. The adsorption mechanism was also studied.