Removal of arsenic from water using Aluminum Nanoparticles synthesized through arc discharge method

Abstract

The present study describes a novel procedure for As (V) removal from water using pure Al nanoparticles (AlNps) prepared by arc discharge technique. Some spectroscopic and microscopic techniques such as X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) and Barrett–Joyner–Halenda (BJH) corroborated the structure of the prepared nanoparticles. From TEM image, the average size of nanoparticles was nearly calculated 15 nm. To confirm the removal of arsenic, Inductive Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES) was used. The effects of some parameters such as contact time, adsorbent dose, As (V) initial concentration, pH, and ionic strength were investigated. In optimum conditions, for a solution with the initial concentration of 30 mg/L of arsenic (V), the maximum removal (92%) took place after 3h at pH of 3. The adsorption followed the pseudo-first-order kinetic model.The equilibrium data fitted well to Langmuir adsorption isotherm which suggested monolayer adsorption. Adsorption capacity was calculated 55.5 mg/g through Langmuir isotherm which confirmed AlNps present an outstanding ability to remove As (V) not only due to a high surface area and small particle size but also because of their great inherent action.