ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Mater.
Sec. Polymeric and Composite Materials
Amine-terminated zirconium metal-organic framework as an efficient adsorbent for lanthanum removal
- JS
Jagadeesan Saranya 1
- SR
Sivalingam Ramesh 2
- RR
RAJENDRAKUMAR RT 3
- YH
Yuvaraj Haldorai 1
1. PSG College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore, India
2. Dongguk University, Jung District, Republic of Korea
3. Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, India
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Abstract
The current study developed an amine-terminated zirconium metal-organic framework (UiO-66-NH2) to effectively adsorb lanthanum (La3+) from water. The UiO-66-NH2 was confirmed by various analytical techniques. The optimization of La3+ removal was achieved through response surface methodology. For the adsorption of La3+, the best conditions were determined to be 10 mg of adsorbent, pH 9, and 150 min of contact time. The adsorbent UiO-66-NH2 exhibited a high surface area of 682 m2/g with a removal efficiency of 99.86% and an adsorption capacity of 312.5 mg/g for La3+. The solution pH and the adsorbent quantity had a great effect on the rate of La3+ adsorption. The Freundlich model was well suited the adsorption isotherm with an R2 value of 0.9986. The La3+ adsorption on the UiO-66-NH2 followed the pseudo second-order kinetic model. The Weber-Morris model suggested that the adsorption process was primarily governed by a single mass-transfer mechanism throughout the examined time interval. Therefore, it is possible to employ this type of MOF as an adsorbent to remove heavy metals and rate earth metals from sea water.
Summary
Keywords
Adsorption, Amine functionalized, Lanthanum, Response Surface Methodology, UIO-66-NH2
Received
22 July 2026
Accepted
04 September 2026
Copyright
© 2026 Saranya, Ramesh, RT and Haldorai. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Yuvaraj Haldorai
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