Regeneratable Magnetic Iron Oxide Embedded Chitosan Beads For Optimized Adsorption Treatment of Nitrate Containing Mine Water

Abstract

Industries and their sites across the world are a major contributor to pollution in water, among which Nitrates possess the most toxic effects. To overcome this problem a productive method is needed for the removal of Nitrate from water. Therefore, chitosan beads, a non-toxic, biocompatible and biodegradable polymer, have showed great potential in numerous applications, including the removal of different salt ions and heavy metals from water. In this study Nano scale Iron Oxide particles produced by Coprecipitation method were embedded in chitosan by using chemical coprecipitation method, resulting in beads. The performance of Iron Oxide embedded chitosan beads (IECB) in a batch system has been studied, for nitrate adsorption from industrial water. Concentration of nitrate in solution was determined via UV Vis spectrophotometry. Physiochemical properties of IECB were characterized through XRD, SEM, FTIR, VSM, contact angle and BET. Multiple factors influencing the adsorption attitude of IECB such as adsorbent dosage, initial concentration, pH and the interaction time of Nitrate ions were measured: pH=5, 24 °C in 2 hrs. In this study, the Langmuir isotherm model (R2 > 0.991) and pseudo second order kinetics (R2 > 0.984) best fitted the experimental. Regeneration experiment was performed up to 5th cycle in which efficiency was dropped from 93% to 79%.