Adsorptive removal of cesium ions from aqueous solutions using synthesized Prussian blue/magnetic cobalt ferrite nanoparticles

Abstract

Low cost nano-adsorbent [PBCoFe₂O₄] Prussian blue loaded magnetic cobalt ferrite was prepared using a facile method. Characterization of the synthesized adsorbent was carried out using XRD, FT-IR, TEM, and SEM. Batch technique was used to investigate the removal of cesium utilizing BPCoFe₂O₄. The capacity of Cs⁺ adsorption increased from 25 to 55 mg/g and 75 to 98 mg/g when pH increased from 2.0 to 5.0 in case of using CoFe₂O₄ and BPCoFe₂O₄, respectively. The maximum capacity for Cs⁺ sorption was observed around pH5.0 and 25 ± 1 °C. The kinetics of the Cs⁺ uptake was fitted in the second-order kinetic model. The sorption of Cs⁺ using [PBCoFe₂O₄] was fitted to the Langmuir isotherm model and the calculated maximum cesium capacity was found to be 178.8 mg/g. The influence of temperature was discussed and the calculated thermodynamic parameters indicated that sorption of Cs⁺ using [PBCoFe₂O₄] is endothermic and spontaneous process. It could be concluded that Cs⁺ could be potentially removed from wastewater using [PBCoFe₂O₄].

Keywords:

• Magnetic
• composite
• nanoparticles
• cesium
• sorption