A bench-scale study on the removal and recovery of phosphate by hydrous zirconia-coated magnetite nanoparticles

Abstract

Owing to the easy magnetic separation from water for reuse, magnetic nanoparticles have drawn great interest as adsorbents. Herein hydrous zirconia-coated magnetite nanoparticles (Fe3O4@ZrO2) were created by a facile method and a bench–scale study was undertaken to evaluate its effectiveness and mechanism to remove phosphate at low concentrations. Results indicated that phosphate removal by Fe3O4@ZrO2 was fast (95% of phosphate removal within 10min) and nearly complete removal could be achieved at the adsorbent dosage >0.6g/L. In tap water or wastewater where competitive anions coexist, regulation of pH was found to be quite effective to augment the performance of phosphate removal. In pH–lowered adsorption systems, phosphate removal followed a good pattern similarly to pure water, i.e., a continuous high efficiency removal followed by a rapid saturation. Adsorption–desorption–regeneration studies showed that Fe3O4@ZrO2 could be repeatedly used for phosphate removal and adsorbed phosphate could be stripped for recovery. The fractionation of adsorbed phosphorus suggested that NaOH-P fraction was dominant. We also found that the adsorption reaction of phosphate with Fe3O4@ZrO2 shifted the isoelectric point of Fe3O4@ZrO2 from ~9.0 to ~3.0. FTIR measurements further showed the direct coordination of phosphate onto zirconium by replacement of hydroxyl groups. The formation of the monodentate (ZrO)PO2(OH) complex was proposed.