Mercury/ions/salts adsorption

Opinions differ on the nature of the metal-adsorbed anion bond for specific adsorption. In all probability, a covalent bond similar to that formed in salts of the given ion with the cation of the electrode metal is not formed. The behaviour of sulphide ions on an ideal polarized mercury electrode provides evidence for this conclusion. Sulphide ions are adsorbed far more strongly than halide ions. The electrocapillary quantities (interfacial tension, differential capacity) change discontinuously at the potential at which HgS is formed. Thus, the bond of specifically adsorbed sulphide to mercury is different in nature from that in the HgS salt. Some authors have suggested that specific adsorption is a result of partial charge transfer between the adsorbed ions and the electrode. 

Toxic pollutants found in the mercury cell wastewater stream include mercury and some heavy metals like chromium and others stated in Table 22.8, some of them are corrosion products of reactions between chlorine and the plant materials of construction. Virtually, most of these pollutants are generally removed by sulfide precipitation followed by settling or filtration. Prior to treatment, sodium hydrosulfide is used to precipitate mercury sulfide, which is removed through filtration process in the wastewater stream. The tail gas scrubber water is often recycled as brine make-up water. Reduction, adsorption on activated carbon, ion exchange, and some chemical treatments are some of the processes employed in the treatment of wastewater in this cell. Sodium salts such as sodium bisulfite, sodium hydrosulfite, sodium sulfide, and sodium borohydride are also employed in the treatment of the wastewater in this cell28 (Figure 22.5). 

SWV has been applied to study electrode reactions of miscellaneous species capable to form insoluble salts with the mercury electrode such as iodide [141,142], dimethoate pesticide [143], sulphide [133,144], arsenic [145,146], cysteine [134, 147,148], glutathione [149], ferron (7-iodo-8-hydroxyquinolin-5-sulphonic acid) [150], 6-propyl-2-thiouracil (PTU) [136], 5-fluorouracil (FU) [151], 5-azauracil (AU) [138], 2-thiouracil (TU) [138], xanthine and xanthosine [152], and seleninm (IV) [153]. Verification of the theory has been performed by experiments at a mercury electrode with sulphide ions [133] and TU [138] for the simple first-order reaction, cystine [134] and AU [138] for the second-order reaction, FU for the first-order reaction with adsorption of the ligand [151], and PTU for the second-order reaction with adsorption of the ligand [137]. Figure 2.90 shows typical cathodic stripping voltammograms of TU and PTU on a mercuiy electrode. The order of the... 

Whether the diminution in mercurous salt concentration of a solution in contact with an expanding mercury surface be regarded as due to the adsorption of the salt on the newly formed surface as imagined by Gibbs and Warburg or as due to the transference of mercurous ions from the aqueous to the metallic phase as postulated by Lippmann and Nemst, we have seen that the number of grm. equivalents removed from the solution per unit increase in 1... 

Some polystyrene resins (cross-linked with DVB) are specially modified to have chelating functional groups bound to the matrix so as to make them selective towards certain ions. Such resins with iminodiacetic acid groups are marketed under the trade names Dowex A-1 (Dow Chemical) and Chelex 100 (Bio-Rad Laboratories). The complex (XXVI) formation constants with metal ions of the chelating resin are so large that the resin absorbs metal ions equivalent to the iminodiacetic acid groups (used in sodium salt form), i.e., the efficiency of metal ion adsorption is near 100%. A particular metal ion can be removed by controlling the pH of aqueous solution. For example, at pH 2, mercury and copper ions are... 

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