La activated high surface area titania float for the adsorption of Pb(ii) from aqueous media

Abstract

Currently, the world faces alarming challenges of heavy metal contamination, which are hazardous to humans and the environment because of their toxicity even in trace concentrations. Lead is one of the harmful heavy metal contaminants and has poisonous effects on human health. The present research investigation describes the adsorption of toxic Pb(II) on an immobilized adsorbent with a highly smaller crystallite size along with enhanced surface area and pore volume of La doped TiO₂ synthesized from a simple co-precipitation method. Induction of dopant La³⁺ was confirmed by XPS with a smaller particle size of 25 nm as compared to TiO₂ of 80 nm. The La doped TiO₂ shows an enhanced surface area of 97.246 m² g⁻¹ compared to TiO₂ of 17.2 m² g⁻¹ due to the introduction of oxygen vacancies leading to increased surface roughness and thus shows significant improvement in the adsorption of Pb(II) in comparison with TiO₂ at basic pH due to the negative charge on La doped TiO₂. A suitable optimized pH was examined and the Pb(II) adsorption study was measured using atomic absorption spectroscopy.