Abstract
Boron removal capacity of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) modified with tartaric acid was investigated in this study. Modification of MWCNTs with tartaric acid was confirmed by Boehm surface chemistry method and fourier transform infra-red (FT-IR) spectroscopy. Experiments were performed to determine the adsorption isotherm and adsorption thermodynamic parameters of boron adsorption on tartaric acid modified MWCNTs (TA-MWCNTs). The effect of variables including initial pH, dosage of adsorbent, contact time and temperature was investigated. Analysis of data showed that adsorption equilibrium could be better described by Freundlich isotherm and the maximum adsorption capacities obtained at the pH of 6.0 was 1.97 mg/g. The estimated thermodynamic values of free energy (ΔG°), entropy (ΔS°) and enthalpy (ΔH°) indicated a spontaneous and an endothermic process. Furthermore, the TA-MWCNTs was magnetized for separation of boron-contaminated adsorbent from aqueous solution by applying magnetic field. The results showed that magnetic TA-MWCNTs particles were separated effectively after adsorption from contaminated water.
Highlights
Water with less impurities and contaminants is essential to the human’s life
Boron (B) is one of the elements that can cause the lethal in case of more than 640 mg/kg body weight oral intake according to the world health organization (WHO) report [1,2]
The higher amount of oxygen containing functional groups resulted in the dominance of acidic character in TA-multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) comparing to MWCNTs [23]
Summary
Water pollution is the introduction of physical, chemical and biological substances into the water bodies that spoils the purity of water and it will cause hazardous effects on living species that consume it. Boron (B) is one of the elements that can cause the lethal in case of more than 640 mg/kg body weight oral intake according to the world health organization (WHO) report [1,2]. Boron is normally present as borate anions B(OH)-4 and boric acid B(OH). The dominant form of inorganic boron in acidic aqueous systems is the undissociated boric acid. On the other hand polyborate anionic species including B5O6(OH)4- , B3O3(OH), B3O3(OH)52and B4O5(OH)42- form in high concentration solutions (>0.025 mol/l) at a neutral to alkaline pH (pH 6 to 11) [3,4]
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