Abstract & Overview
The study provides a comparative analysis of As (III), As (V) and F removal by iron oxide nanoparticles and iron oxide/alumina nanocomposites.The nanoparticles were characterized by particle size, zeta potential and Scanning Electron Microscopic analysis which showed spherical iron oxide nanoparticles around ~200 nm and nanocomposites around ~300 nm.Energy Dispersive Analysis X ray Spectroscopic analysis confirmed the presence of Fe, O in iron oxide nanoparticles in addition to Al in the iron oxide/alumina nanocomposites.Batch sorption studies carried out at varying initial concentrations of As and F revealed an enhanced F and As sorption capacity for the nanocomposites when compared to the nanoparticles.The sorption isotherm showed that data for As (III), As (V) and F fitted best to Freundlich isotherm for both the type of nanoparticles.The maximum sorption capacity of iron oxide nanoparticles for As (III) and As (V) at pH 7 were 909 µg/g and 3333 µg/g while the comparative maximum adsorption capacity qm values for the nanocomposites were 1000 µg/g and 2500 µg/g respectively.The maximum F sorption capacity of iron oxide nanoparticles was 1.47 mg/g while it was 4.82 mg/g for the nanocomposites.The preliminary results of the study showed that the iron oxide/alumina nanocomposites can be promising adsorbents for both As and F removal from small scale water systems.