RESEARCH ARTICLE Microwave-hydrothermal method for the synthesis of composite materials for removal of arsenic from water Ivan Andjelkovic 1 & Bojan Jovic 2 & Milica Jovic 1 & Marijana Markovic 3 & Dalibor Stankovic 1 & Dragan Manojlovic 2 & Goran Roglic 2 Received: 27 April 2015 /Accepted: 19 August 2015 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015 Abstract Composite material Zr-doped TiO 2 , suitable for the removal of arsenic from water, was synthetized with fast and simple microwave-hydrothermal method. Obtained material, Zr-TiO 2 , had uniform size and composition with zirconium ions incorporated into crystal structure of titanium dioxide. Synthetized composite material had large specific surface area and well-developed micropore and mesopore structure that was responsible for fast adsorption of As(III) and As(V) from water. The influence of pH on the adsorption capacity of ar- senic was studied. The kinetics and isotherm experiments were also performed. The treatment of natural water sample containing high concentration of arsenic with composite ma- terial Zr-TiO 2 was efficient. The concentration of arsenic was reduced to the value recommended by WHO. Keywords Water . Arsenic removal . Composite material . Titanium dioxide . Zirconium Introduction Since the discovery of increased concentrations of arsenic in groundwater of Bangladesh and West Bengal, scientific com- munity even today make efforts to reduce the concentration of arsenic in drinking water. The anthropogenic sources of arse- nic can be monitored, controlled, and reduced. The problem is a natural source of arsenic. Increased concentration of arsenic in water, as a result of water–rock interaction, is present in many countries, among others in Chile (Bugueno et al. 2014), China (He and Charlet 2013), Hungary (Rowland et al. 2011), America (Sorg et al. 2014), and Japan (Kondo et al. 1999). In natural waters, arsenic is usually present as inorganic As(III) and As(V). Toxicological effects of arsenic are well known. It was found that chronic oral intake of con- centrations of arsenic higher than value recommended by WHO for drinking water can result in variety of health prob- lems, including skin lesions, diabetes, cardiovascular and pe- ripheral vascular disease, and various kinds of cancer (NRC 2001; Altikat et al. 2015). Also, inorganic As(III) species are more toxic, more soluble and mobile than inorganic As(V) species. It is necessary to remove arsenic from such water before use. Among the available techniques for the treatment of water, one of the most used is sorption due to the simplicity of the procedure and low cost of treatment. A variety of materials have been tested as sorbents for the removal of arsenic, rang- ing from industrial and agricultural waste (Genc-Fuhrman et al. 2004; Zhang and Itoh 2005; Amin et al. 2006; Yang et al. 2014), natural and easily available oxides and minerals (Pena et al. 2005; Singh and Pant 2004; Pereira et al. 2007) to laboratory synthesized materials (Bortun et al. 2010; Zhang et al. 2010; Minovic et al. 2015). During the last few years, the attention of researchers was directed toward synergetic effect of composite adsorbents Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11356-015-5283-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Ivan Andjelkovic ivanhem@chem.bg.ac.rs * Goran Roglic groglic@chem.bg.ac.rs 1 Innovation Center of the Faculty of Chemistry, University of Belgrade, Studentski Trg 12-16, Belgrade, Serbia 2 Faculty of Chemistry, University of Belgrade, Studentski Trg 12-16, Belgrade, Serbia 3 Institute of Chemistry, Technology and Metallurgy, Center of Chemistry, University of Belgrade, Njegoseva 12, Belgrade, Serbia Environ Sci Pollut Res DOI 10.1007/s11356-015-5283-z