Removal of Copper (ii) ions from Synthetic Waste Water Using Fe2O3 Magnetic Nanoparticles

Abstract

Many techniques have been developed to treat heavy metals, including adsorption. The present work aims to treat synthetic wastewater polluted with copper by magnetic nanoparticles. The range of the studied parameters is: pH 3-9, adsorbent dose 10-70 mg, contact time (CT) 5-60 minutes, magnetic field strength (MFS) 1.5-5.5 Tesla, and initial copper concentration(Co) 2-8 mg/L. Batch experiments were conducted using a jar test apparatus to obtain the best conditions for Copper removal. The results indicated that the highest removal efficiency for copper is 82.35% under the following operating conditions: pH 5, CT 20 minutes, Dose 50mg /l, MFS 3 T, and copper initial concentration(Co) 2 mg/l. It is found that the Langmuir adsorption model fairly fits the experimental data, which implies that there was a monolayer adsorption of Cu+2. The adsorption capacity under the operating parameters that give maximum removal efficiency is 12.36 mg/g.  However, the obtained adsorption capacity ranges from 9.10 to 855.58 mg/g. The results also indicate that copper removal is increased with time, dose, and magnetic field strength, while it decreases with copper concentration. Moreover, copper removal increases till the pH of 5 and then decreases.