A promising materials approach to combatting renal hyperphosphatemia:Fe(II)-montmorillonites

The objective of the current effort was to determine the efficacy of Fe(II)-montmorillonite (Fe(II)-MMT) as an adjuvant for specific targeted adsorption of phosphate. Specifically, Fe(II)-MMT was studied to combat hyperphosphatemia and anemia arising from chronic renal failure. The adsorption of phosphate over time, pH, and initial concentration was studied. The systems were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman, and zeta potential. The experimental results demonstrated the adsorption time was set to 140 min to achieve maximum adsorption efficiency. It was thus found that the maximum adsorption was at pH 3.0. In addition, it reached equilibrium when the initial phosphate concentration was at 60 mg/L while the maximum adsorption capacity was 5.75 mg of phosphate/g of Fe(II)-MMT. On the other hand, adsorption isotherms showed that the Langmuir model was better than the Freundlich model. This means that the adsorption of the phosphate on Fe(II)-montmorillonites was monolayer adsorption, and the phosphate was successfully adsorbed either onto the surface or intercalated within interlayer volume. Live experiments supported the ability of Fe (II)-MMT to control hyperphosphatemia and treat chronic renal failure.