This study investigated the adsorption of gallium onto chemical and biogenic elemental tellurium nanoparticles. Biogenic elemental tellurium nanoparticles (BioTeNPs) were found to be a good adsorbent for the removal and recovery of gallium from aqueous solution with an adsorption capacity of 74 mg of Ga³⁺ per g BioTeNPs. The adsorption mechanism followed pseudo second order kinetics (R² = 0.999) and the experimental data fitted the monolayer adsorption theory-based Langmuir model. BioTeNPs had a size of 5.30–86.1 nm, a negative zeta potential (–32 mV) and were coated with a layer of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS). Further, a high desorption efficiency of 99% from Ga³⁺ adsorbed onto the BioTeNPs was achieved using oxalic acid (0.1 M) as eluent. This study proposes a novel removal and recovery method for Ga³⁺ by adsorption on BioTeNPs produced in bioreactors treating tellurium oxyanion rich wastewaters.

本研究调查了镓在化学和生物元素碲纳米粒子上的吸附。生物元素碲纳米粒子 (BioTeNPs) 被发现是一种很好的吸附剂，可用于从水溶液中去除和回收镓，每 g BioTeNPs的吸附容量为 74 mg Ga ^{3+ 。}吸附机理遵循准二级动力学（R ²  = 0.999），实验数据符合基于单层吸附理论的Langmuir模型。BioTeNPs 的尺寸为 5.30-86.1 nm，具有负 zeta 电位 (–32 mV)，并涂有一层细胞外聚合物 (EPS)。^{此外，Ga 3+}的解吸效率高达 99%使用草酸（0.1 M）作为洗脱液实现吸附到 BioTeNPs 上。本研究提出了一种通过吸附在处理富含碲氧阴离子的废水的生物反应器中产生的 BioTeNPs 来去除和回收 Ga ^{3+的新方法。}