EN
Tetrabromobisphenol-A (TBBPA) and its analogue compounds (bisphenol-A (BPA) and 2,6-dibromophenol (2, 6-DBP)) sorption on CTMAB-clays was investigated in this paper through bath experiments. Montmorillonite and kaolinite modified by CTAMB, as the adsorbent, were firstly characterized by XRD, FTIR and SEManalysis. The surface areas was determined using N2 (77K) sorption-desorption analysis. Kinetic studies showed that sorption reached equilibrium in 5 hours and followed the pseudosecond order kinetic model. The intra-particle diffusion model for sorption was also investigated and compared to identify the sorption mechanism. The sorption isotherms, well fitted by Freundlich model, were changed from being non-linear to being linear with intercalating CTMAB into clays, which indicated that CTMAB increased the partition interaction. A combination of partition and specific sorption might be contributed to TBBPA and its composition products sorption mechanism. The Freundlich coefficients (kF) and distribution coefficients (kd) for both two adsorbents were primarily increased by increasing amount of adsorbed CTMAB, while the organic carbon normalized sorption coefficients (koc) did not follow this trend. Meanwhile, 100%CEC-CTMAB-Montmorillonite showed an advantage of removal of the selected compounds than 100%CEC-CTAMB-Kaolinite. The sorption capacity of BPA was bigger than that of 2,6-DBP in spite of their similar hydrophobicity, which indicated some molecule properties might influence the sorption on CTMAB-clays. Moreover, the negative ΔG0 and ΔH0 indicated the spontaneous and exothermal process. The TBBPA sorption on CTMAB-clays was considerably enhanced in the acid condition.