Study on arsenic removal capacity of iron oxide pillared montmorillonite clay from ground water

Pillared clays were synthesized based on the previous reported method using trinuclear acetate complexes of iron (III) as pillaring agent and montmorillonite as starting material. Surface area of the clay increases from 51 m2/g to 265 m2/g after pillaring with iron oxide. Arsenic (V) uptake increases many fold due to the use of pillared clay showing the importance of the iron oxide pillars. Due to the high porosity the availability oxide pillars increases and hence the sorption capacity increases. However the uptake of arsenic (III) is less than that of arsenic (V) on the studied material. Arsenic uptake increases with increasing the sorption temperature.