Preparation of montmorillonite grafted polyacrylic acid composite and study on its adsorption properties of lanthanum ions from aqueous solution

Montmorillonite grafted polyacrylic acid composite (GNM) was prepared by using ultraviolet radiation grafting method in this work. The synthesized materials were characterized by XRF, SEM, FTIR, XRD, TG, and XPS. The experimental equilibrium data indicates that the adsorbent is suitable for the Langmuir model and belongs to the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. The entire adsorption process is spontaneous, endothermic, and chaotically enhanced by thermodynamic analysis. The maximum adsorption capacity of La(III) by GNM was 280.54 mg/g at 313.15 K. In addition, the regeneration experiment shows that the adsorbent has good reusability and stable desorption efficiency. This study demonstrates that GNM has high adsorption performance and La(III) adsorption and regeneration capabilities to solve the water pollution caused by rare earth ions and regeneration capabilities for La(III).