Publication

Abstract : The current study involves the synthesis of Lantana camara (LC)–incorporated mesostructured iron nanoparticles for the removal of nickel ions from aqueous solution. By systematically varying the operational parameters such as metal ion concentration, pH, adsorbent dosage, contact time, and temperature, the desirable conditions of adsorption were determined. The favorable adsorption at higher temperatures implies that the system is exhibiting endothermic reactions and the Van’t Hoff plot suggested the spontaneous and feasible nature of the adsorption process. Another key point is the fast kinetics of the sorption process that occurred in the first 10 min of sorption processes. Among the kinetic models investigated, the sorption is better explained by pseudo-second-order model favoring chemical adsorption. Furthermore, the complexation of nickel ions with –COOH groups of the LC nanoparticles are confirmed in the FTIR studies and the mesoporous (162.1 A°) nature of nanoparticles are confirmed in the BET analysis. From the VSM analysis, the superparamagnetic nature of the mesoporous nanoparticles were revealed. Another important finding from the VSM results is the high saturation magnetization (66.9 emu/g) of the nanoparticles. Equally important is desorption studies where a maximum efficiency of 81% is obtained using 05 N HCl. With the help of the Langmuir modeling studies, the possible mechanism of sorption are explained and more importantly the monolayer adsorption capacity from the model was found to be 133 mg/g.