Title: Removal of inorganic contaminant phosphate from aqueous solutions by bimetallic Ficus-ZVFe/Cu nanoparticles

Authors: Hossam Mohammed Abdel-Aziz; Rabie Saad Farag; Soha Ali Abdel-Gawad

Addresses: Chemical Industries Development (CID) Company, Giza, Egypt ' Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt ' Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt

Abstract: Green chemistry approach has become the eco-friendliest and effective technique by using Ficus Benjamina for preparing bimetallic nanoscale zerovalent Fe/Cu particles and removal of phosphates from the aqueous solutions. Scanning electron microscope (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDAX) were used for characterisation. The removal adequacy of phosphates (5 mg L⁻¹) reached to 73% under the condition of 0.3 g L⁻¹, 30 min, and pH 4. The adsorption results are more appropriate by the Langmuir model [R² = 0.998], with q_max = 17.42 mg g⁻¹. The results of adsorption kinetics indicate that, phosphates uptake on Ficus-nZVFeCu is following the pseudo-second order model. Overall, Benjamina nZVFe/Cu is a committed green substance to remove phosphates. Operating parameters effect was investigated using a SPSS-linear regression analysis and found that more than 97% of the variables have an effect on the removal process.

Keywords: phosphate; bimetallic; nZVFe/Cu; Ficus Benjamina; green synthesised.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEE.2021.113775

International Journal of Environmental Engineering, 2021 Vol.11 No.1, pp.53 - 68

Received: 03 Nov 2019
Accepted: 19 Sep 2020
Published online: 22 Mar 2021 *

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