Green synthesis of iron oxide magnetic nanoparticles for the adsorption of lead (II) from aqueous medium

National Institute of Technology Durgapur, Durgapur-713 209, West Bengal, India
E-mail: san.mondal@gmail.com

Manuscript received online 01 June 2020, revised and accepted 17 October 2020

In this work, iron oxide magnetic nanoparticles (Fe3O4) have been synthesized using pomegranate peel extract, via green synthesis route, to remove heavy metal lead (II) from aqueous medium. Iron powder has been used as precursor agent and pomegranate peel extract has been used as reducing agent. The reaction process, i.e. co-precipitation, is simple, of low cost and eco-friendly. Synthesized adsorbent i.e. nanoparticles, were first characterized by XRD to know the crystalline structure and phase. Also, SEM analysis was carried out to know the surface morphology of the adsorbent and the surface area of the nano particles were estimated using BET surface area analyzer. The average surface area of the nanoparticles is 173.38 m²/g. Average particle size is 35 nm as found in DLS analysis. The adsorption of Pb²⁺ on the surface of nano adsorbent follows Pseudo second order reaction model and Langmuir isotherm model. The maximum adsorption capacity of nano adsorbent is 142.999 mg/g. Maximum removal efficiency was observed to be 97.95% at pH 6.