Abstract
The increasing pace of water resource contamination by heavy metal and pharmaceutical pollutants necessitates the use of advanced methods. Nanomaterials with unique properties are widely employed as adsorbents to address this issue. In this research, a single-step method was developed to coat the magnetite nanoparticles (MNPs) on the sand to produce sand coated with MNPs (S-MNPs), then to use this nanocomposite for the removal of moxifloxacin (MFX) and cadmium (Cd(II)) from aqueous solutions. This method is intended to solve the problem of aggregation and difficulty in the separation of MNPs. The coating method was based on the green synthesis approach by coprecipitation of Fe2+ and Fe3+ ions using green (polyphenolic) extract. The extract of cucumber (Cucumis sativus) peels was selected among six other types of vegetal peels. A trial and error procedure was performed to obtain the suitable amount of the extract to produce MNPs with higher stability and the desired surface functionality. It was found that 5 mL per 100 mL (extract/solution) is the best ratio. The synthesized MNPs were categorized by a set of tests. Then, the synthesized S-MNPs were used in a set of batch experiments with varying conditions to remove the contaminants, moreover, isotherm, kinetics, and thermodynamic study were applied to study the ability of the manufactured nanocomposite to remove contaminants from aqueous solutions and to optimize its utilization. The experimental results proved that the synthesized S-MNPs have a good ability to remove the selected contaminants, with a removal capacity of 94 % and 80 % for MFX and Cd(II), respectively.
Published Version
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