Hassan Karami; Anahita Ghasemi
Abstract
In this work, copper oxide nano sorbent (CONS) with an average diameter of 30 nm is synthesized by polyvinyl alcohol-based sol-gel method to remove heavy metal ions from an aqueous solution. The produced nanopowder is fully characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron ...
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In this work, copper oxide nano sorbent (CONS) with an average diameter of 30 nm is synthesized by polyvinyl alcohol-based sol-gel method to remove heavy metal ions from an aqueous solution. The produced nanopowder is fully characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and dynamic light scattering (DLS). Various physicochemical parameters such as solution pH, nano-sorbent dosage, solution temperature, contact (mixing) time, initial concentration of lead ion, and the initial volume of lead ion sample are investigated and optimized by the "one at a time" method. Based on the experimental data, the optimum conditions for the full removal of lead ions with an initial concentration of 30 ppm, include pH 6, a sorbent dosage of 1.6 mg ml-1, a solution temperature of 25 ºC, and a contact time of 13 min. The experimental results showed that the adsorption of lead ions by copper oxide nanoparticles has a good fit with Langmuir isotherm and follows the pseudo-second-order kinetics model. The experimental data shows the synthesized CuO nanoparticles are an effective sorbent for the removal of Pb(II), Fe(II), and Cu(II) from water with maximum capacities of 33.7, 20.2, and 18.8 mg g-1, respectively.
