Journal of Water Resource and Protection, 2017, 9, 811-821 http://www.scirp.org/journal/jwarp ISSN Online: 1945-3108 ISSN Print: 1945-3094 DOI: 10.4236/jwarp.2017.97054 June 19, 2017 The Effect of Preparation Conditions on the Removal Efficiency of Water Pollutants Using LTA Zeolite Islam Hamdy Abd El Maksod 1,2 , Samia Kosa 1 , Eman Z. Hegazy 1,2* 1 Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia 2 Physical Chemistry Department, National Research Centre, Dokki, Egypt Abstract In this study LTA zeolite was prepared from kaolin. The effect of ultrasonic irradiation on the crystal structure and ability to ion exchange of some heavy metals were studied. Many techniques were used to characterize the prepared zeolite includes X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) with crystal lattice analysis, Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and finally ion exchange isotherm of some heavy metal ions. The results showed that the ultrasonicated zeolite ex- hibits different behavior towards ion exchange with increasing its capacity. The ultrasonicated zeolite showed little increase in the lattice parameters with increasing in the crystal size. Fitting adsorption isotherms on the metal ad- sorbed showed an observable change in the behavior of ultrasonicated zeolite towards the metals exchanged. Keywords Zeolite, XRD, Lattice Parameters, Ultra Sonication, Ion Exchange, Silica 1. Introduction The preparation of zeolites from clays and raw materials was a subject of many researches in the past decades [1] [2] [3] [4]. The zeolites were considered to be three dimensional alumino silicate structures consists of tetrahedral of TO 4 (T, Si or Al). The resulting combination of these tetrahedra resulted in excess negative charge which balanced by a mobile cation [5]. These distinct proprieties of zeo- lite enable it form perfect performance in ion exchange. In addition to that, the three dimensional arrangements inside the zeolite structure add a variety of porous structures within the range of micropores [6] [7]. Many synthetic zeolites require what is called template, acts as a directing agent to the required pores [8] How to cite this paper: El Maksod, I.H.A., Kosa, S. and Hegazy, E.Z. (2017) The Effect of Preparation Conditions on the Removal Efficiency of Water Pollutants Using LTA Zeolite. Journal of Water Resource and Protection, 9, 811-821. https://doi.org/10.4236/jwarp.2017.97054 Received: May 9, 2017 Accepted: June 13, 2017 Published: June 19, 2017 Copyright © 2017 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open Access