Heavy metal ions such as Cr(VI) pose great hazards to the environment, which requests materials and methods for decontamination. Nano zero-valent iron (nZVI) has emerged as a promising candidate for Cr(VI) removal. Herein, harnessing the merits of marine biomass, a heterogeneous water treatment system for the decontamination of Cr(VI) is developed based on the in situ immobilization of nZVI on the seashell powder (SP)-derived porous support. A response surface methodology (RSM) study involving three independent factors is designed and conducted to direct material synthesis and reaction design for products with optimal performances. Under optimal synthetic conditions, the nZVI-loaded seashell powder (SP@nZVI), which is characterized in detail by scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), results in a 79% increase in the removal efficiency of Cr(VI) compared to free nZVI. Mechanism studies show that the removal of Cr(VI) by SP@nZVI conforms to the Langmuir adsorption model with a quasi-second order kinetic equation, in which redox reactions between nZVI and Cr(VI) occurred at the SP surface. The results of this work are expected to benefit the reuse of bioresource waste in developing environmental remediation materials.
Keywords: chromium removal; pyrolysis; response surface methodology; seashell resource utilization; zero-valent iron.