Application of layered double hydroxide enriched with electron rich sulfide moieties (S₂O₄²⁻) for efficient and selective removal of vanadium (V) from diverse aqueous medium

The preparation of an adsorbent with highest efficiency, selectivity and stability is usually a challenging task. Herein, we prepared a thio functionalized layered double hydroxide (LDH) denoted as S₂O₄ LDH by intercalating a strong reducing agent (S₂O₄²⁻) in the interlayers of trimetallic LDH and was applied to capture vanadium (V(V)) oxyanions from aqueous medium of diverse conditions. The successful preparation of the adsorbent was first confirmed using XRD, FTIR, EDX and CHS analyses. The results revealed that the modified LDH showed excellent performance at a wider pH range which can avoid the tedious work of adjusting pH in actual industrial wastewater treatment. The adsorption capacity was increased with temperature and obtained 379.55 mg/g at 323 K comparing to 112.3 mg/g at 293 K. The adsorption isotherm was better fitted to Langmuir model which suggested monolayer adsorption behavior. At lower temperature (293 K), the sorption kinetics were fitted to a pseudo-first order reaction model which implied physisorption reaction while at higher temperatures (303 and 323 K), the reaction order fitted to pseudo-second order reaction model which highlighted the chemisorption reaction mechanism. As confirmed using XRD, FTIR, EDX and XPS instrumental techniques, the dominant removal mechanism of V(V) involved ion-exchange and partial reduction reactions to nontoxic and less soluble V(IV) and V(III) species due to the low valent sulfur group and followed adsorption in S₂O₄ LDH. The prepared adsorbent showed very good selectivity towards V(V) in the presence of different co-existing ions both in synthetic wastewater and spiked real water samples. This novel adsorbent also exhibited high recyclability and obtained >90.0% removal of V(V) after four consecutive adsorption–desorption cycles due to the unique memory effect of the LDH. We believe that this strategy provides a new direction to find highly efficient and selective materials for capturing vanadium ions from wastewater of diverse conditions.