Background Acid mine drainage (AMD) is a worldwide industrial pollution of grave concern. AMD pollutes both water sources and the environment at large with dissolved toxic metals which are detrimental to human health. This paper reports on the preparation of polymeric ion exchange resins decorated with hydrated iron oxides and their application for the ecological removal of toxic metals ions from AMD. Methods The hydrated iron oxide particles were incorporated within commercial chelating ion exchange resins using the precipitation method. The synthesised hybrid resins were then characterized using appropriate spectroscopic and solid-state techniques. The metal ion levels were measured using the inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES). The optimization of contact time, pH, and adsorbent dosage were conducted to enhance the efficiency of adsorption of toxic metals onto the hybrid organic/inorganic nanosorbents. Kinetics and adsorption isotherms were constructed to study the adsorption mechanisms of the adsorbents. Results The results showed that the dispersed Fe-O is hydrated and amorphous within the hybrid materials. The adsorption kinetics followed the pseudo-second-order shown by the high R 2 values. The hybrid adsorbents were finally tested on environmental AMD samples and were able to remove toxic metals Al, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb and Zn at various removal degrees. Conclusion Solution pH played a crucial role in the adsorption of toxic metals on hybrid iron oxide adsorbents. The hybrid TP-260 HFO had higher affinity for toxic metals than other prepared adsorbents thus has a potential for acidic mine water pollution remediation. The adsorbed Al(III) can be recovered using NaCl-NaOH binary solution from the loaded resins.

Arid areas often contain brackish groundwater that has a salinity exceeding 500 mg/L. This poses several challenges to the users of the water such as a salty taste and damage to household appliances. Desalination can be one of the key solutions to significantly lower the salinity and solute content of the water. However, the technology requires high energy inputs as well as managing waste products. This paper presents the fabrication of ultrafiltration heterogeneous ion exchange membranes for brackish groundwater treatment. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images showed a relatively uniform resin particle distribution within the polymer matrix. The mean roughness of the cation exchange membrane (CEM) and anion exchange membrane (AEM) surfaces increased from 42.12 to 317.25 and 68.56 to 295.95 nm, respectively, when resin loading was increased from 1 to 3.5 wt %. Contact angle measures suggested a more hydrophilic surface (86.13 to 76.26° and 88.10 to 74.47° for CEM and AEM, respectively) was achieved with greater resin loading rates. The ion exchange capacity (IEC) of the prepared membranes was assessed using synthetic groundwater in a dead-end filtration system and removal efficiency of K+, Mg2+, and Ca2+ were 56.0, 93.5, and 85.4%, respectively, for CEM with the highest resin loading. Additionally, the anion, NO3− and SO42− removal efficiency was 84.2% and 52.4%, respectively, for the AEM with the highest resin loading. This work demonstrates that the prepared ultrafiltration heterogeneous ion exchange membranes have potential for selective removal for of ions by ion exchange, under filtration conditions at low pressure of 0.05 MPa.

Environmental pollution due to acid mine drainage (AMD) is a worldwide concern because of its high content of toxic metals and acidity. The toxic metal species present in AMD tends to affect negatively the whole ecological system where it is discharged, and this requires an elective solution to remedy the environment. In this study, hydrated ZrO 2 nanoparticles (HZO) were irreversibly dispersed within chelating ion-exchange resins using the precipitation method, resulting in HZO-260, HZO-207, HZO-214, HZO-4195 and HZO-900 organic/inorganic nanosorbents which were used for the removal of metals from AMD. The synthesized nanosorbents were characterized using SEM-EDS, FTIR and XRD. The effect of time, adsorbent dosage and pH on Al(III) adsorption was investigated using the batch technique. The SEM-EDS confirmed the incorporation of HZO within all the parent resins, while XRD showed that the hybrid materials were amorphous. The adsorption of Al(III) occurred through physisorption and was favourable only onto HZO-260 as revealed by the data modelling. Metal levels were determined using the ICP-OES technique. The HZO-260 removed 100% Al(III) in acidic conditions and was successfully regenerated for reuse using a NaCl-NaOH binary solution (pH > 12). HZO-260 removed selected metals (Al, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, Co, Cu, Zn, Pb and Cd) from environmental AMD. Therefore, HZO-260 has a promising potential as an adsorbent for AMD remediation.

Fe, Zr and Ti oxides nanoparticles were each embedded onto a weak acid chelating resin for support, by the precipitation method, to generate three hybrid adsorbents of hydrated Fe oxide (HFO-P), hydrated Zr oxide (HZO-P) and hydrated Ti oxide (HTO-P). This paper reports on the characterization, performance and potential of these generated nanoadsorbents in the removal of toxic metal ions from acid mine drainage (AMD). The optimum contact time, adsorbent dose and pH for Al(III) adsorption were established using the batch equilibrium technique. The metal levels were measured using the inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES). The SEM-EDS results confirmed the presence of the metal oxides within the hybrid resin beads. HFO-P, HZO-P and HTO-P adsorbed Al(III) rapidly from synthetic water with maximum adsorption capacities of 54.04, 58.36 and 40.10 mg/g, respectively at initial pH 1.80 ± 0.02. The adsorption of Al(III) is of the second-order in nature (R2 > 0.98). The nanosorbents removed 10 selected metals from environmental AMD and the metal removal efficiency was in the order HTO-P > HZO-P > HFO-P. All three hybrid nanosorbents can be used to remove metals from AMD; the choice would be dependent on the pH of the water to be treated.

The naphthoic acids are challenging and costly to remove from water and soil. 1-Hydroxy-2-Naphthoic acid (HNA) is a phenanthrene decomposition product from petroleum-contaminated environments during the aerobic decomposition of polyaromatic hydrocarbons. The hydrogeological mobility of hydrocarbon breakdown products represent a pollution risk (e.g. for drinking water sources). Adsorption to biochar produced from agricultural by-products is a useful strategy to remediate contaminated wastewaters. Here, we examine the controls on the HNA adsorption to the adsorbents magnetite, clay minerals, biochar and magnetite enriched companion materials, namely the influence of contact time, contaminant concentration and ionization effects at different pH. The adsorption of HNA was investigated using low-cost and readily available adsorbents: i) wheat straw biochar, ii) rice husk biochar, iii) sugarcane biochar, iv) zeolite, v) montmorillonite, vi) magnetite and their enriched magnetic companions. Magnetite