Adsorption of naphthalene onto sonicated talc from aqueous solutions

The adsorption behavior of naphthalene onto naturally hydrophobic talc from aqueous solution was investigated in this study. The natural talc was first pretreated by sonication to improve the surface characteristics and enhance the uptake capacity by increasing the specific surface area (SSA) of talc. The naphthalene uptake of talc was found as 276 mg g(-1) and increased to 359 mg g(-1) after the sonication. Adsorption studies also showed that the adsorption of naphthalene onto the sonicated talc was not affected by changes in pH suggesting that the main driving forces for naphthalene adsorption onto talc was hydrophobic bonding rather than electrostatic force. The pseudo-first and pseudo-second orders and intraparticle diffusion equation were used to evaluate the kinetic data and the constants were determined. Adsorption process of naphthalene onto talc followed the pseudo-second-order rate expression for different initial naphthalene concentrations. The Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models were used to model the isotherm data for their applicability. The Freundlich isotherm best fitted for the adsorption of naphthalene onto talc.