IREVWI HAPPY AGHOGHO

Cases of dental and skeletal fluorosis have been reported in children especially in low income earning countries and this has been a major problem as documented in recent studies. Clay is an adsorbent material that is cheap and readily available relative to other industrially synthesized adsorbents and its properties has been explored by recent researchers. This study aims at assessing the adsorptive properties of raw and modified edible clay on fluoride from solution. The effect of concentration, adsorbent
dosage, and time and isotherm studies were conducted using standard procedures documented in literatures. From the result, activated edible clay had the highest percentage removal at 15 minutes with a value of 95.37%, 96.74% at a concentration of 50mg/L of fluoride, and 96.92% at an adsorbent dosage of 1.3g. The raw edible clay showed maximum adsorption at 25 minutes, at maximum concentration of 30mg/L fluoride, and at a dosage of 1.3g with values of 93.98%, 96.63%, and 96.34% respectively. The adsorption does not follow a monolayer coverage as the data could not fit into the Langmuir and Freundlich’s isotherms. These values indicate that the raw and oxalic acid modified clay are good adsorbents for the removal of fluoride from solution.