Abstract
The need to recycle and develop nanomaterials from waste, and use them in environmental applications has become increasingly imperative in recent decades. A new method to convert the mill scale, a waste of the steel industry that contains large quantity of iron and low impurities into a nanoadsorbent that has the necessary properties to be used for water purification is presented. The mill scale waste was used as raw material for iron oxide nanopowder. A thorough characterization was performed in each stage of the conversion process from the mill scale powder to magnetic nanopowder including XRD (X-ray diffraction), SEM (scanning electron microscopy), TEM (transmission electron microscopy), BET (Brunauer, Emmett and Teller) and magnetization properties. Iron oxide nanoparticles were approximately 5–6 nm with high specific surface area and good magnetic properties. These are the necessary properties that a magnetic nanopowder must have in order to be used as nanoadsorbents in the heavy metal removal from waters. The iron oxide nanoparticles were evaluated as adsorbents for the removal of Cu, Cd and Ni ions.
Highlights
The results indicated aamixbetween with the possibility of having nanoparticles with a magnetite ture between Fe33O44 and γFe22O33 with the possibility of having nanoparticles with a magcore covered byby a maghemite layer
The iron oxides nanoparticles obtained from the Mill scale (MS) powder were about 6 nm in size and presented superparamagnetic behavior and a large specific surface area. All these properties of the magnetite nanopowder synthesized from the MS powder highlighted their potential for use as nanoadsorbents for heavy metal removal from wastewaters
Preliminary studies regarding heavy metals ions (Ni, Cu, Cd) from ternary aqueous solution systems were performed with good removal efficiency, i.e., over 90% after 10 min, which was maintained for about 100 min
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. FeO is found at the metal surface and Fe2 O3 is in the outer layer [8] These oxides are formed during the fabrication of steel structures and the wastes can be converted into a valuable secondary material due to its high iron content They can be accumulated at low concentrations and can be quickly linked by protein nucleic acids and metabolites, causing the alteration of biological functions [15] Conventional methods, such as sedimentation, chemical precipitation, solvent extraction, ion exchange, or membrane separation, are well-known for their performances in removing heavy metals from water and wastewater [15]. Adsorption capacity, efficiency efficiency and the Langmuir isotherm are presented and the Langmuir isotherm model aremodel presented in detail. in detail
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