Abstract: Antimony is a toxic element and is carcinogenic to living organism. The content of antimony in the water body around the antimony mining area in China is much higher than the standard of drinking water. In order to seek effective method for low-cost treatment of wastewater containing Sb（Ⅲ）， antimony adsorption experiment was carried out by attapulgite modified with FeCl3·6H2O as adsorbent， K（SbO）C4H4O6·1/2H2O as Sb（III） antimony source. The influence of the iron load content， the adsorption time and the initial concentration of Sb（III） on the adsorption capacity of IMA was discussed. The results show that: XRD image of modified attapulgite showed characteristic peaks of hydroxyl-oxide iron （FeOOH）. The surface of attapulgite was rougher after modification， therefore， the corresponding specific surface area increased by 17%， furthermore， attapulgite was an excellent carrier of FeOOH. When the initial concentration of Sb（III） was 150 mg/L and the adsorption time was 720 minutes， the adsorption capacity of IMA50 for Sb（III） was 18.51 mg/g， which was 14.9 times that of natural attapulgite. The adsorption capacity of Sb（III） by IMA increased with the increment of the amount of iron loaded. Elovich model can describe the adsorption kinetic process. The Langmuir isotherm was the best-fit adsorption isotherm model for the experimental data， and the maximum adsorption capacity is 20.19 mg/g. After adsorbed Sb（Ⅲ）， the characteristic absorption peak of FeOOH and Fe—O bond absorption peak shifted to high wavenumber direction， suggested a chemical reaction between Sb （III） and hydroxyl-oxide iron. The test results for low-cost treatment of wastewater containing Sb （Ⅲ） has the certain practical significance.

Key words: Attapulgite, Sb（Ⅲ）, Absorption capacity, Hydroxyl-oxide iron