Mercury Removal from Contaminated Water Resources Using Modified Multi Walled Carbon Nanotubes

Mercury is one of the heavy metals that is toxic to humans, animals and the environment. The contribution of mercury in the water resources are from various sources including the discharge from industry and municipal wastewater. Hence, removal of mercury from water resources, especially for human consumption, is extreamely important. The removal of mercury is usually accomplished through adsoption and one method is through use of carbon nanotubes as the absorbent. The available commercial nanotubes are often synthesized by chemical vapor deposition which is done easily in an industrial scale. The aim of this research was to find an optimum condition to remove mercury from water by using a multi walled carbon nanotubes modified with Tris (2- aminoethyl) amine. To accomplish the main objective of the study, multi walled carbon nanotubes were machined in laboratory with chemical vapor deposition and later modified with Tris (2-aminoethyl) amine. These multi walled nanotubes then used to absorb mercury ions in water and the amount of absorption measured by induced coupled plasma (ICP). The nanoparticles in this study were analyzed by FT-IR, Raman, TG-DTA, SEM, and EATo evaluate the optimum adsorption for the removal of mercury, several influencing factors such as pH fluctuations, concentration of the initial mercury in solution, absorbent weight, and contact time were investigated. The results obtained from this study conformed mercury adsorption to Langmuir and Freundlich Isotherms. The removal of mercury ions drastically increased with the increase in pH. The optimum adsorption capacity was 115 mg/g and the highest absorption yield was 95± 1. In summary, based on the limited results obtained from this study, it is fair to conclude that the MW-CNT modified with Tris (2-aminoethyl) amine is a useful method for the removal of mercury from water.