Original Articles
Iman Khonsha, Amir Heidarinasa
Abstract
In the present manuscript, a new method is reported for adsorbing toxic hexavalent chromium by novel functionalized magnetite nanoparticles. To increase sorption capacity, polymer grafting operations on the surface of nanoparticles were used, increasing the specific surface of sorbent. This novel adsorbent was synthesized by grafting N,N-dimethylacrylamide, and allylamine polymers to magnetic nanoparticles as a functional chelating group. Through creating an external magnetic field, expensive filtration and ultrafilteration operations, which are time-consuming, are entirely eliminated. Characterization of the functionalized magnetite nano particles is carried out via fourier transform infrared spectrometer, elemental analysis, transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and X-ray diffraction technique. The optimum sorption pH value for chromium was 4. Kinetic adsorption data were modeled using the pseudo-first-order, pseudo second- order, and intra-particle diffusion equations whose rate constants were determined 0.0778, 0.0772, and 0.7223 respectively. Pseudo-second-order model presented the best adaptation of chromium adsorption, having the maximum value of correlation coefficient.