Groundwater purification using functionalised magnetic nanoparticles (electromagnetic separation)

Abstract

Most developing countries are faced with drinking water problems, with conditions becoming more severe due to water pollution. Meeting the growing demands for clean water in most countries, there are difficult challenges as the availability and supply of drinkable water are diminishing. Due to economic and environmental concerns, development of additional physical means for the removal of organic compounds from wastewater using permanent magnets, electromagnetic coils, electrodes and ultrasonic pretreatment is desirable. Improving the adsorption and separation process, magnetic field exposure method has progressively drawn consideration. Magnetic field exposure method has demonstrated its capacity for increasing the adsorptive elimination of contaminants from water as static magnetization is suitable, simple and cost-effective. The polypyrrole magnetic nanocomposite use for adsorption experiments influenced by exter-nal magnetic field was prepared using the in-situ polymerization method, which was charac-terized using TEM, SEM, EDX, XRD, BET, FTIR, VSM, and ESR spectrophotometers. The magnetic nanocomposite (PPy/Fe3O4) was observed to have an average particle size of 10 nm with the elementary composition of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, chloride and iron. The magnetic nanocomposite had a crystalline structure of face-centred cubic lattice of Fe3O4, an adsorption-desorption isotherm shape indicating a typical type-IV mesoporous material with a surface area of 28.77 m2/g. Characteristic peaks of Fe3O4 and PPy were also observed using FTIR spectro-photometer. From the VSM and ESR characterization, the synthesized superparamagnetic ma-terial was shown to have a saturation magnetization of 23 emu/g and an effective g-value of 2.25 g which was attributed to Fe3+ spin interaction. An enhanced removal of Cr(VI), fluoride and congo red dye were observed under the influence of magnetic field, with parameters like pH, adsorbent dosage, the initial concentration of ad-sorbate, magnetic field and magnetic exposure time been varied. The enhanced adsorption of contaminants using magnetic field is attributed to the increase in the magnetic field induced on the particles over a magnetic exposure time, resulting in the rotating particles forming aggre-gates due to the increased magnetic force and torque on the particles from the PSV results. This leads to increase in the chain collision and area of particle interaction with the aqueous solution of hexavalent chromium, fluoride and congo red dye.