Abstract

Background: Water contamination and its remediation are currently considered a major concern worldwide. Design of effective methods for water purification is highly demanded for the adsorption and removal of such pollutants.

Objective: This study depicts the effectiveness of nickel oxide-copper oxide nanoparticles (NiO-CuO), which can extract and remediate ferric ions, Fe(III), from aqueous solutions.

Methods: The NiO-CuO nanoparticles were simply prepared by the co-precipitation method and then used as adsorbent with respectable advantages of high uptake capacity and surface area.

Results: Adsorption of Fe(III) onto NiO-CuO nanoparticles showed an uptake capacity of 85.86 mgg^-1 at pH 5.0. The obtained data from the carried-out experiment of Fe(III) adsorption onto NiO-CuO nanoparticles were well suited to the Langmuir isotherm and pseudo-second-order kinetic models. Moreover, different coexisting ions did not influence the adsorption of Fe(III) onto NiO-CuO nanoparticles. The recommended methodology was implemented on the adsorption and removal of several environmental water samples with high efficiency.

Conclusion: The designed method displayed that NiO-CuO nanoparticles can be used as a promising material for the adsorptive removal of heavy metals from water.

Keywords: Ferric ions, nanomaterials, NiO-CuO, adsorption capacity, environmental applications, Fe(III) ions.