Drin pesticides removal from aqueous solutions using acid-treated date stones

This work describes the potential applicability of chemically and thermally treated date stones for removing drin pesticides (aldrin, dieldrin and endrin) from aqueous solutions. The effect of several parameters, such as sorbent particle size, adsorbent dose, shaking speed, shaking time, concentration of pesticide solution and temperature, was evaluated by batch experiments. Pesticide determination was carried out using stir bar sorptive extraction and gas chromatography coupled with mass spectroscopy. Maximum removal efficiency (93%) was reached using 0.1 g of acid-treated date stones (ATDS) (63–100 μm) and 100 mL of aldrin (0.5 mg L⁻¹). The removal efficiency of drin pesticides decreased in the order of aldrin, dieldrin and endrin, and decreased as the temperature rose. Adsorption data were processed according to various kinetic models. Lagergren and Morris-Weber equations were applied to fit the kinetic results. The second order model was the most suitable on the whole, and intra-particle diffusion was found to be the rate-controlling the adsorption process. According to adsorption kinetic data, 3.5 h were considered as the equilibrium time for determining adsorption isotherms. Adsorption data were analyzed by the Langmuir, Freundlich and Dubinin–Radushkevich adsorption approaches. Experimental results showed that the Freundlich isotherm model best described the adsorption process. In addition, thermodynamic parameters such as ΔH, ΔS and ΔG were calculated. Negative values of ΔH and ΔG indicate the exothermic and spontaneous nature of pesticide adsorption on ATDS.