Study of Kinetics and the Working Mechanism of Silica-Coated Amino-Functionalized CoFe2O4 Ferrite Nanoparticles to Treat Wastewater for Heavy Metals

Muhammad Umer Saleem; Humaira Hussain; Shazia Shukrullah; Muhammad Yasin Naz; Muhammad Irfan; Saifur Rahman; Abdulnoor Ali Jazem Ghanim

doi:10.1021/acsomega.3c07200

Study of Kinetics and the Working Mechanism of Silica-Coated Amino-Functionalized CoFe₂O₄ Ferrite Nanoparticles to Treat Wastewater for Heavy Metals

ACS Omega. 2024 Jan 10;9(3):3507-3524. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.3c07200. eCollection 2024 Jan 23.

Authors

Muhammad Umer Saleem¹, Humaira Hussain², Shazia Shukrullah¹, Muhammad Yasin Naz¹, Muhammad Irfan³, Saifur Rahman³, Abdulnoor Ali Jazem Ghanim⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, 38040 Faisalabad, Pakistan.
² Department of Chemistry, University of Okara, 56300 Okara, Pakistan.
³ Electrical Engineering Department, College of Engineering, Najran University Saudi Arabia, Najran 61441, Saudi Arabia.
⁴ Civil Engineering Department, College of Engineering, Najran University, Najran 61441, Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

This study used a simple coprecipitation method to produce pristine, silica-coated, and amino-functionalized CoFe₂O₄ nanoadsorbents. Amino-functionalization was done to increase the active surface area and metal ion removal efficiency. Both pristine and functionalized adsorbents were employed to recover Pb(II), Zn(II), and Cu(II) ions from wastewater. The adsorption tests were performed by varying the initial concentration of metal ions and contact time at a fixed pH of 6.5. Atomic adsorption spectroscopy was utilized to detect the proportion of metals removed from water. Additionally, the pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order, Freundlich, and Langmuir models were employed to compute the kinetic and isothermic data from metal ion adsorption onto the adsorbents. The amino-functionalized adsorbent showed adsorption capacities of 277.008, 254.453, and 258.398 mg/g for Cu(II), Pb(II), and Zn(II) ions, respectively. According to the adsorption results, the Langmuir isotherm and the pseudo-second-order model best suit the data. The best fitting of the pseudo-second-order model with the data indicates that coordinative interactions between amino groups and metal ions are responsible for chemisorption. The metal ions bind with -NH₂ groups on the adsorbent surface through chelate bonds. Chelate bonds are extremely strong and stable, indicating the effectiveness of the CoFe₂O₄@SiO₂-NH₂ adsorbent in adsorbing heavy-metal ions. The tested adsorbent exhibited good performance, batter stability, and good reusable values around 77, 81, and 76% for Cu(II), Pb(II), and Zn(II) ions, respectively, after five adsorption cycles.