5. Conclusions
On the basis of the results obtained the following conclusions can be made: 1. the speciation study carried out on the Pd2+-AA system gave evidence for the formation of a stable Pd(AA) species with logKPdAA = 9.124 in mixed NaClO4/NaCl medium, at I = 0.1 mol L1 and T = 25 C; 2. the sequestering ability of alginate towards Pd(II) ion has been evaluated by calculating the pL0.5 parameter, a semi-empirical parameter that represents the total ligand concentration necessary to sequestrate the 50% of trace metal ion present in solution. The sequestering ability of alginate changes by varying the pH and chloride concentration in solution with a maximum pL0.5 value of 6.28 found at pH = 2 and at CCl = 0; 3. a kinetic and thermodynamic study on the sorption capacity of Ca-AA gel beads towards Pd(II) ion was carried out in the pH range 2–5 and at different chloride concentrations. The experimental data were fitted with a pseudo second order kinetic equation and with Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms, respectively; 4. the experimental conditions to be adopted in the sorption study were chosen on the basis of the results of the speciation study on the Pd2+-AA system, assuming that the sequestering capability of the ligand in solution and the sorption capacity of its calcium salt gel beads towards Pd(II) ion are strictly correlated; 5. the good linear correlation and the similarities between the trends of binding/sequestering (pL0.5, % of PdAA) and sorption (qe, qmax) parameters as function of pH and chloride concentration confirm our T hypothesis about the analogous behaviour of alginate as ligand in aqueous solution and as sorbent gel material towards Pd(II) ion; 6. kinetic and thermodynamic studies on the sorption capacity of calcium alginate gel beads showed that in the pH and CCl ranges investigated CaAA is a good sorbent towards Pd(II) ion. The highest qmax values were found at pH = 2 and CCl = 0 mmol L1 and at pH = 3 and CCl = 2.5 mmol L1 . A fairly good palladium uptake was also found at pH = 5 and CCl = 0.01 mol L1 . Ackno.