A comparative study of Fe, Cu nanoparticles and bimetallic Fe-Cu nanoparticles in the removal of methyl orange from water and water-ethanol solutions

Other Title(s)

دراسة مقارنة بين دقائق الحديد النانوية و دقائق النحاس النانوية و الدقائق النانوية المختلطة للحديد و النحاس في إزالة مادة "مثيل أورانج" من محاليل الماء و محاليل مكونة من الماء و الإيثانول

Dissertant

Majadilah, Mays Jamal

Thesis advisor

Shahwan, Talal

University

Birzeit University

Faculty

Faculty of Science

Department

Department of Chemistry

University Country

Palestine (West Bank)

Degree

Master

Degree Date

2022

English Abstract

Nowadays there are continuously increasing worldwide attempts for the development of wastewater treatment technologies due to increasing pollution caused by anthropogenic activities.

Dyes form one of the most familiar groups of water pollutants, which have harmfull effects on the environment and human health.

As a result, there is a wide international interest in innovational methods for the removal of dyes from water.

The utilization of nanomaterials for the removal of dyes from water has taken numerous concern due to their special chemical and physical characteristics, like very small size, high surface-area-to-volume ratio, surface modifiability, and other characteristics.

In this study, nanoparticles of zero-valent iron (nZVI), nanoparticles of zero-valent copper (nZVC), and bimetallic iron-copper (Fe-Cu) nanoparticles were prepared by liquidphase reduction, characterized by different techniques, and used to remove methyl orange (MO) dye from water, water-ethanol, water-DMSO solutions.

The experiments investigated the effects of solvent type, nanoparticles type, nanoparticles dosage, the salinity of the solutions, temperature, and shaking time on the extent of MO sorption.

Heterogeneous Fenton oxidation reactions were also tested.

These experiments were carried out in pure water and water-ethanol solutions basically, in addition to some experiments carried out in water-DMSO solution, in order to assess the effect of solvent type on the efficiency of removal of MO by synthesized NPs.

The results showed that due to the variation in the solvent-solute interactions, very high removal of MO was observed from water solutions, a limited removal was achievable in waterethanol solutions, and very poor removal was observed in water-DMSO solutions.

Therefore, the comparative study was conducted basically between pure water and water-ethanol solvents.

On the overall, the efficiency of Fe NPs towards MO removal was higher than that of Cu and Fe-Cu NPs.

This study found that increasing the NPs dose results in increasing the removal from water solutions by the three nanoparticle types.

In addition, it was found that rising the temperature results in increasing the extent of MO removal from water and water-ethanol solutions by Fe and Fe-Cu NPs, indicating endothermic behavior of the removal process.

On the other hand, rising the temperature results in decreasing the removal of MO from water by Cu NPs indicating exothermic behavior of the process.

Also, it was found that adding NaCl salt to the MO solutions has a negative effect on the removal of MO when iron and copper NPs were used.

Moreover, the heterogeneous Fenton process leads to smaller MO removal when it is compared with the directly application of the synthesized nanoparticles, for both water and water-ethanol solutions.

The dye removal process from water using Fe NPs was much faster than water-ethanol solutions.

The kinetics data showed that the removal of MO from water by Fe NPs follows a pseudo-second order rate equation.

Main Subjects

Chemistry

No. of Pages

71

Table of Contents

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Language

English

Data Type

Arab Theses

Record ID

BIM-1429188