Nitrate Removal From Aqueous Solution Using Quartz Sand - Supported Zero Valent Iron Nano Particles

The aim of this study is the investigation of nitrate removal from aqueous solution using quartz sand – supported zero valent iron nano particles (Sa-Fe0). The synthesis of Sa-Fe0 was based on the reduction of ferrous iron with borohydride, in which quartz sand acted as a porous-based support material. The structure of adsorbent was characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET-N2) analysis. The SEM images revealed that nano zero valent iron particles (nZVI) immobilized on Sa-Fe0 were spherical and clearly discrete and uniformly dispersed on the surface of the stabilizer without any obvious aggregation. In the batch mode adsorption studies, the effects of the contact time, initial nitrate concentration of solution, sorbent dosage,temperature and initial pH on the nitrate adsorption by the Sa-Fe0 have been studied. The adsorption capacity decreased with increasing the Sa-Fe0 dosage and initial pH value of the solution but increased with the increase in the temperature and initial concentration of nitrate. Removal of nitrate using Sa-Fe0 was in accordance with the pseudo first order kinetic model. The initial phase with the rapid rise of the adsorption rate was about 8h and the removal efficincy in this time interval was about 85% for the initial nitrate concentrations of 100 mg/L. The equilibrium data fitted well to the Langmuir model. The maximum adsorption capacity of Sa-Fe0 for nitrate was 20.833.