Investigation of magnesium oxide nanoparticles Efficiency in Phenol removal from aquatic solution

Phenol is one of most common organic pollutants in aqueous environments. Phenol presence in the environment can make some health problems such as carcinogenesis, abnormality of heartbeat, etc for humans and poisonous problems for other organisms. Therefore, this pollutant must be removed from polluted effluents to prevent water pollution. Using nanoparticles in adsorption processes is considered as an effective method for contaminants removal. The aim of this study was to investigate the efficiency of magnesium oxide nanoparticles in phenol removal from aqueous solutions.
In this research, nanoparticles of magnesium oxide were used with size of 43 nm. After the preparation of phenol stock solution, effects of pH¡(3- 5- 7- 9- 11)¡ contact time(10,30, 60, 90, and 120 min)¡ MgO dosage(20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 mg/L) and initial concentration of phenol (25, 50, 75 and 100 mg/l) Were investigated.
Results indicated that the removal efficiency increased with increasing pH, contact time, MgO dosage to a certain range and decreasing initial concentration. Such that the maximum efficiency was equal to 81% in the pH of about 11, initial concentration of 50 mg/L, MgO dosage of 80 mg/l and contact time of 60 min. It was found that adsorption kinetics and equilibrium data follow a pseudo-second-order kinetics model and a Langmuir isotherm model respectively.
This study showed that the magnesium oxide nanoparticles have the ability to remove the phenol and can be used effectively in removing phenol from aqueous solution