ABSTRACT
The amount of heavy metals released into the environment has increased in recent years. Unlike organic pollutants, metals are non-biodegradable and may enter the food chain. A number of technologies are available which often involve high capital cost and operational costs and may also generate secondary wastes. Nanotechnology offers a potential alternative to existing methods. The main objective of the present work was to study the formation of iron nanoparticles in plant extract and their efficiency in removing Zinc and Copper from aqueous media. Batch adsorption studies were done to determine the efficiency of the method. The optimized values of parameters for Zinc are: pH as 4, adsorbent dosage as 2 g/L and contact time as 120 min. The optimized values of parameters for Copper are: pH as 6, adsorbent dosage as 5 g/L and contact time as150 min. Maximum removal of 89% was obtained for Copper and 90.6% for Zinc. The kinetic study showed that pseudo second-order kinetic equation provided the best model for both Zinc and Copper.
