Pergamon Chemosphere, Vol. 39, No. 14, pp. 2459-2466, 1999 © 1999 Elsevier Sciertee Ltd. All fights reserved 0045-6535/99/$ - see front matter PII: S0045-6535(99)00155-1 SORPTION OF ARSENATE AND ARSENITE ANIONS BY IRON(III)-POLY(HYDROXA.MICACID) COMPLEX M. J. Haron, W.M.Z. Wan Yunus, N. L. Yong and S. Tokunaga ~ Chemistry Department, Universiti Putra Malaysia 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor Malaysia. 1National Institute of Materials and Chemical Research, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305 Japan. (Received in Switzerland 8 December 1998; accepted 21 April 1999) ABSTRACT Iron(III)-poly(hydroxamic acid) resin complex has been studied for its sorption abilities with respect to arsenate and arsenite anions from an aqueous solution. The complex was found effective in removing the arsenate anion in the pH range of 2.0 to 5.5. The maximum sorption capacity was found to be 1.15 mmol/g. The sorption selectivity showed that arsenate sorption was not affected by chloride, nitrate and sulphate. The resin was tested and found effective for removal of arsenic ions from industrial wastewater samples. © 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved KEYWORDS: Iron(III)-poly(hydroxamic acid) complex, arsenate and arsenite removal, industrial wastewater. INTRODUCTION Arsenic is one of the most toxic of contaminants found in the environment and it exists in various complex forms or species in the aquatic environment. It enters the environment from anthropogenic sources such as petroleum refineries, fossil fuel power plants, non-ferrous smelting activities and from ceramics, semiconductors, pesticides and fertiliser production. Various techniques such as precipitation, ion exchange and adsorption are employed for the removal of the arsenic anion from water and wastewater. A conventional method for arsenic anion removal from an aqueous system is by precipitation-coagulation with metal ions such as aluminium and ferric salts [1]. However, the precipitation method is usually encumbered by problems of disposing toxic waste sludge which is difficult to dry. To overcome this problem, ion exchange [2-4] and adsorbent materials [5] have been studied for their ability to remove arsenic anions. In recent studies, several chelating polymers loaded with metal such as iron [6-8], copper 2459