No abstract

The presence of fluoride in water has become a major concern worldwide because of its chronic cancirogenic behavior in humans. In order to remove fluoride from aqueous solution we synthesized chitosan gel beads (CB) and cross-linked chitosan gel beads (CCB) in a batch reactor. Thus, a series of experiments was carried out to study the influence on the adsorption capacity of certain parameters such as initial fluoride concentration, adsorbent mass, pH solution and contact time. The results obtained show that the percent removal of fluoride reached a maximum of 62% after 25 min for chitosan gel beads and 72% after 30 min for cross-linked chitosan gel beads. Adsorption kinetics of the fluoride ions on the two adsorbents is well described by the pseudo-first order model and that the adsorption isotherms are followed by the Langmuir model.