Magnesium ferrite/ activated carbon (MgFe2O4/ AC) composite for simultaneous removal of Ni (II), Co (II), Cd (II) and Cu (II) from wastewater via adsorption

Abstract

MgFe2O4/ AC has been synthesized using coprecipitation method. As prepared nanoadsorbent was characterized with various techniques such as Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS). The synthesized MgFe2O4/ AC nanocomposite was tested as adsorbent for simultaneous heavy metal removal; Ni (II), Co (II), Cu (II) and Cd (II) usually present in water and wastewater. In comparison better removal efficiency of Cu (II) was observed as compared to Cd (II), Co (II) and Ni (II) in this study. The influence of adsorbent dose, contact time, metal ion concentration, and pH were also investigated. The synthesized MgFe2O4/ AC nanoadsorbent shows the maximum removal efficiency of 99% for copper ions. A separate experiment was performed for the simultaneous removal of Cd (II), Co (II) and Ni (II) in the absence of Cu (II) which showed that their removal efficiency significantly increased in the absence of copper ions and that copper is selectively removed by MgFe2O4/ AC under all conditions. Although reported earlier, MgFe2O4/ AC did not exhibit excellent reusability in this study due to workup loss in consecutive cycles. This work provides an example to further explore the role of MgFe2O4/ AC for the selective adsorptive removal of Cu (II) in wastewater and exploring spinel ferrite nanocomposites for simultaneous removal of heavy metals.