Adsorption and abiotic oxidation of arsenic by aged biofilter media: equilibrium and kinetics

Removal of arsenic from groundwater by biological adsorptive filtration depends largely on its interaction with biogenic iron and manganese oxides surfaces. In the present study we investigated the arsenic adsorption and abiotic oxidation capacities of an aged biofilter medium (BM2) collected from a long time established groundwater treatment plant for removal of iron and manganese by biological filtration. Batch oxidation/adsorption kinetic experiments indicated that BM2 can easily oxidize As(III) to As(V) with the rate of oxidation less affected by pH-variations from 4 to 8.5. The adsorption capacity of the biofilter medium for the produced or added As(V), however, depends strongly on the pH of the solution. The kinetics results have shown that As(III) sorption followed pseudo-second order kinetics, whereas the sorption of As(V) was best described by the intra-particle diffusion model, indicating that adsorptions of As(III) and As(V) onto BM2 were governed by different mechanisms. Adsorption isotherms at 25 degrees C were measured for a range of arsenite and arsenate initial concentrations of 0.67-20 micromol/L and the pH range from 4 to 9. Adsorption maxima were highest at pH 4 and decrease steadily as the pH increases. The equilibrium data for both As(III) and As(V) fitted very well to the Freundlich and Sips isotherm equations and, in most cases, the two isotherms overlapped with the same correlation coefficients, indicating sorption to be multilayer on the heterogeneous surface of BM2. The implication of the data for arsenic removal from water by biological filtration has been discussed.