Engineering Ferrous-ferric oxide nanocomposites for heavy metal ions removal from aqueous solution

Engineered magnetic nanoparticles have great potential in environmental since they are aiding the separation of a contaminant from aqueous solution by using an external magnetic field. Therefore, in this study, nano sized ferrous-ferric oxide, and ferrous-ferric-silicon dioxide-NH2 were synthesized using a co-precipitation and sol-gel methods, respectively. The nanomaterial was used as an adsorbent for the removal of lead ions from aqueous solution. The nanomaterial was characterized by using TEM and FT-IR techniques. Batch adsorption experiment at room temperature were applied to determine the optimum contact time to remove heavy metal ions from aqueous solution. Consequently, time dependency study showed that the highest removal occurred about two hours contact between adsorbent and lead ions. The removal capacity of the nanomaterial adsorbent was about 78%.