The presence of heavy metals in the environment is major concern due to their toxicity. In the present study a strong acid cation exchange resin, Amberlite IR 120 was used for the removal of lead, zinc and copper from simulated wastewater. The optimum conditions were determined in a batch system of concentration 100 mg/L, pH range between 1 and 8, contact time between 5 and 120 minutes, and amount of adsorbent was from 0.05 to 0.45 g/100 ml. A constant stirring speed, 180 rpm, was chosen during all of the experiments. The optimum conditions were found to be pH of 4 for copper and lead and pH 6 for zinc, contact time of 60 min and 0.35 g of adsorbent. Three different temperatures (25, 40 and 60°C) were selected to investigate the effect of adsorption temperature on heavy metals adsorption onto Amberlite IR. The equilibrium data were analyzed by the Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms. The thermodynamic parameters such as Gibbs free energy, enthalpy and entropy changes were calculated. Moreover, in order to understand the heavy metal extraction kinetics in the presence of Amberlite IR 120, the ion exchange kinetics was also studied. The ion exchange kinetics data were regressed by the pseudo first-order, second-order models. The results obtained show that the Amberlite IR 120 strong acid cation exchange resin performed well for the removal of lead, zinc and copper.
Health and environmental factors as well as operational difficulties are major challenges facing the development of an anaerobic digestion process. Some of these problems relate to the use of sludge collected from primary and secondary clarifier units in wastewater treatment plants for laboratory purposes.
The present study addresses the preparation of sludge for laboratory purposes by using a mixture that consists of the digested sludge, which is less pathogenic, compared to the collected sludge from the primary or secondary clarifier, and food wastes. The sludge has been tested experimentally for 19 and 32 days under mesophilic conditions. The results show a steady methane production rate from the anaerobic dig
... Show MoreNanocrystalline copper sulphide (Cu2-xS) powders were synthesized by chemical precipitation from their aqueous solutions composed of different molar ratio of copper sulfate dehydrate (CuSO4.5H2O) and thiorea (NH2)2CS as source of Cu+2, S-2 ions respectively, and sodium ethylene diamine tetra acetic acid dehydrate (EDTA) as a complex agent. The compositions, morphological and structural properties of the nanopowders were characterized by energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), scanning electron microscope (SEM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD), respectively. The compositional results showed that the copper content was high and the Sulfur content was low for both CuS and Cu2S nanopowders. SEM images shows that all products consist of aggregate o
... Show MoreNanoparticles of humic acid and iron oxide were impregnated on the inert sand to produce sorbent for treating groundwater contained of cadmium and copper ions by technology of permeable reactive barrier (PRB). Sewage sludge was the source of the humic acid to prepare the coated sand by humic acid—iron oxide (CSHAIO) sorbent; so, this work is consistent with sustainable development. For 10 mg/L metal concentration, batch tests at speed of 200 rpm signified that the removal efficiencies are greater than 90% at sorbent dosage 0.25 g/ 50 mL, pH 6 and contact time 1 h. The kinetic data was well described by the Pseudo first-order model indicating that physicosorption is the predominant mechanism. The maximum adsorption capacities (qmax) were c
... Show MoreThe goal of this investigation is to prepare zinc oxide (ZnO) nano-thin films by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique through Q-switching double frequency Nd:YAG laser (532 nm) wavelength, pulse frequency 6 Hz, and 300 mJ energy under vacuum conditions (10-3 torr) at room temperature. (ZnO) nano-thin films were deposited on glass substrates with different thickness of 300, 600 and 900 nm. ZnO films, were then annealed in air at a temperature of 500 °C for one hour. The results were compared with the researchers' previous theoretical study. The XRD analysis of ZnO nano-thin films indicated a hexagonal multi-crystalline wurtzite structure with preferential growth lines (100), (002), (101) for ZnO nano-thin films with different thi
... Show MoreZinc Oxide (ZnO) is probably the most typical II-VI
semiconductor, which exhibits a wide range of nanostructures. In
this paper, polycrystalline ZnO thin films were prepared by chemical
spray pyrolysis technique, the films were deposited onto glass
substrate at 400 °C by using aqueous zinc chloride as a spray
solution of molar concentration of 0.1 M/L.
The crystallographic structure of the prepared film was analyzed
using X-ray diffraction; the result shows that the film was
polycrystalline, the grain size which was calculated at (002) was
27.9 nm. The Hall measurement of the film studied from the
electrical measurements show that the film was n-type. The optical
properties of the film were studied using
In this work, the effect of preparing a composite of copper oxide nanoparticles with carbon on some of its optical properties was studied. The composite preparing process was carried out by exploding graphite electrodes in an aqueous suspension of copper oxide. The properties of the plasma which is formed during the explosion were studied using emission spectroscopy in order to determine the most important elements that are present in the media. The electron’s density and their energy, which is the main factor in the composite process, were determined. The particle properties were studied before and after the exploding process. The XRD showed an additional peak in the copper oxides pattern corresponding to the hexagonal graphite struct
... Show MoreThe 17 α-ethinylestradiol (EE2) adsorption from aqueous solution was examined using a novel adsorbent made from rice husk powder coated with CuO nanoparticles (CRH). Advanced analyses of FTIR, XRD, SEM, and EDSwere used to identify the classification parameters of a CRH-like surface morphology, configuration, and functional groups. The rice husk was coated with CuO nanoparticles, allowing it to create large surface area materials with significantly improved textural qualities with regard to functional use and adsorption performance, according to a detailed characterization of the synthesized materials. The adsorption process was applied successfully with elimination effectiveness of 100% which can be kept up to 61.3%. The parameters of ads
... Show MoreThe preparation and characterization of innovative nanocomposites based on zinc oxide nanorods (ZNR) encapsulated by graphene (Gr) nanosheets and decorated with silver (Ag), and cupper (Cu) nanoparticles (NP) were studied. The prepared nanocomposites (ZNR@Gr/Cu-Ag) were examined by different techniques including Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Atomic force microscopy (AFM), UV-Vis spectrophotometer and fluorescence spectroscopy. The results showed that the ZNR has been good cover by five layers of graphene and decorated with Ag and Cu NPs with particles size of about 10-15 nm. The ZNR@Gr/Cu-Ag nanocomposites exhibit high absorption behavior in ultraviolet (UV) region of sp
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