Sorption characteristics of an economical sorbent material used for removal radioisotopes of cesium and europium

Application study for the evaluation of sorption characteristics of sawdust as an economical sorbent material used for decontamination of radioisotopes cesium and europium from aqueous solution has been carried out in the present work. In this respect, sawdust (untreated and treated by HNO₃) has been prepared from the commercial processing of wood for furniture production. Pore properties of the activated carbon such as BET surface area, pore volume, pore size distribution, and pore diameter were characterized by N₂ adsorption and DFT software. Radiotracer method onto sawdust from aqueous solutions was studied in a batch technique with respect to pH, contact time, temperature. The kinetics of adsorption of Eu³⁺ and Cs⁺ have been discussed using five kinetic models namely, pseudo-first-order model, pseudo-second-order model, Elovich equation, intraparticle diffusion model, and modified Freundlich equation that have been tested in order to analysis the experimental data. Kinetic parameters and correlation coefficients were determined. It was shown that the second-order kinetic equation could describe the sorption kinetics for two metal ions. The metal uptake process was found to be controlled by intraparticle diffusion. Thermodynamic parameters, such as ΔH, ΔG and ΔS, have been calculated by using the thermodynamic equilibrium coefficient obtained at different temperatures. The obtained results indicated that endothermic nature of sorption process for both ^152+154Eu and ¹³⁴Cs onto sawdust.