Wastewater treatment is still a global concern and materials capable of pollutant sequestration continue to be improved in a bid to ensure water reusability and curb water shortages. Some of the most promising materials so far are nanosized materials because of their unique properties and the ease of manipulation to improve their properties. In this work we investigated the effects of varying Fe3+ : Fe2+ ratios in magnetite nanoparticles and the influence of manganese doping. Diffraction measurements indicated that the manganese introduced into the magnetite matrix displaced some Fe atoms resulting in the formation of a uniform phase matching the card data for magnetite with no additional manganese phases being formed. XPS confirmed the presence of manganese on the surface of the doped nanomaterials and that both As(iii) and As(v) were bound on the adsorbent surface. The central composite design (CCD) of response surface methodology (RSM) was used to determine the effects the nanoparticle compositions had on As(iii) adsorption and oxidation. A quadratic equation was used to model the experimental data with a correlation coefficient close to unity indicating that the model was a good fit for the data. The interaction between Fe3+ and Mn had a positive influence in the reduction of As(iii) in solution while Fe3+/Fe2+ interactions had antagonistic effects and the Fe2+/Mn interactions were found to be insignificant. Increasing the amounts of Fe3+ and manganese therefore resulted in the highest reduction in As(iii) concentration.
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