Influence of outside environmental variations on ammonia nitrogen adsorption characteristics of HVMT/PC/EPDM composite

A new kind of ammonia nitrogen (AN) sewage water treatment composite was prepared by melt blending, with synthetic rubber ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM) and polycarbonate (PC) as the matrix, the natural vermiculite (VMT) powder modified by hydrochloric acid solution (HVMT) as the filler. By Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) measurement and XRD measurement, it was confirmed that the HVMT was more suitable as filler than VMT. By considering the influence of pH, temperature, adsorption composite content and initial mass concentration on removal rate and adsorption capacity, it can be concluded that the removal rate increased first and then decreased with the increasing pH. “Room temperature” was the optimum temperature for the composite. The removal rate of AN increased with the increasing adsorption composite content. When the adsorption reached equilibrium, the removal rate remained unchanged; the adsorption capacity of AN increased with increasing initial concentration. The removal rate increased gradually with lower initial concentration of AN. When the initial concentration increased to a certain level, the removal rate started to decline. When the initial concentration and composite content showed adsorption equilibrium, the adsorption capacity remained unchanged. The composite can be recycled to be reused after regeneration for nine cycles; the AN adsorption capacity of composite was decreased by only 4.5 %. If the composite can be prepared in large-scale production lines, the costs of HVMT/PC/EPDM porous composite can be controlled at less than USD 16/kg.