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Aiming to achieve heavy metal adsorption in water and soil environments, a montmorillonite rich bentonite was graft-copolymerized with chitosan, and the obtained composite material was evaluated as a metal immobilizing agent for remediating metal contaminated soil. The graft-copolymerization reaction in the composite was confirmed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) techniques. Batch adsorption studies with varying experimental conditions, such as adsorbent amount, pH and metal concentration, were conducted to assess the metal adsorption capacity of the composite. The adsorption pattern followed the Langmuir isotherm model, and maximum monolayer capacity was 88.5, 72.9, 51.5 and 48.5 mg g-1 for Cu, Zn, Cd and Ni, respectively. Amendment of a contaminated soil with the composite enhanced the metal retention capacity by 3.4, 3.2, 4.9 and 5.6-fold for Cu, Zn, Cd and Ni, respectively, over unamended soil. The desorption percentage of metals from the composite treated soil was significantly lower than the unamended contaminated soil. The findings indicated that immobilization of heavy metals in soils could be achieved by the chitosan-bentonite, which would potentially be an inexpensive and sustainable environmental remediation technology.

Contamination of drinking water sources with agrochemical residues became a major concern in the twenty-first century. Coagulation-flocculation is the most widely used water-treatment process, but the efficiency to remove pesticides and other organic pollutants are limited compared to adsorption process. Thus, simultaneous action of adsorption on normal bentonite or organo-modified montmorillonite clays [modified with octadecylamine (ODA-M) and octadecylamine + amino-propyltriethoxysilane (ODAAPS-M)] followed by coagulation-flocculation by alum and poly aluminium chloride has been evaluated for removal of 10 different pesticides, namely atrazine, lindane, metribuzin, aldrin, chlorpyriphos, pendimethalin, alpha-endosulphan, beta-endosulphan, p,p'-DDT, cypermethrin and two of its metabolites, endosulphan sulphate and p,p'-DDE, from water. The coagulation without integration of adsorption was less effective (removal % varies from 12 to 49) than the adsorption-coagulation integrated system (removal % varies from 71 to 100). Further, coagulation integrated with adsorption was more effective when organically modified montmorillonite was used as adsorbent compared to normal bentonite. The removal efficiency of organic clay depends upon the concentration of pesticides, doses of clay minerals, and efficiency was more for ODAAPS-M as compared to ODA-M. The combination of ODAAPS-M-clay with coagulants was also used efficiently for the removal of pesticides from natural and fortified natural water collected and the results exhibit the usefulness of this remediation technique for application in water decontamination and in treatment of industrial and agricultural waste waters.

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