Comparative Study between Zn and Cu Nano Ferrite in Removal of Heavy Metals and Microorganisms from Water

Abstract

The effect of Nano composite materials (CuFe2O4 and ZnFe2O4) was studied for removal of heavy metals (Cd (II) and Pb (II)) from wastewater by batch adsorption method and explain their effect on the antimicrobial effectiveness on gram positive and negative bacteria. Nano composite materials were characterized by XRD where the result indicates that the average crystallite sizes were around 36.19 nm for ZnFe2O4 and 12.22 nm for CuFe2O4.The effect of contact time, adsorbent dose, pH and type of adsorbents was used to find the optimum condition for removal of Cd(II) and Pb(II) ions .The equilibrium adsorption data was good fitted to the Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models, and the pseudo first-order kinetic model showed the excellent fit in adsorption equilibrium capacity. The best pH used for removal was 7. The good removal reaches at the time 45 min for cadmium and need more time for lead. When increasing dosage of adsorbents, the removal efficiency increases. Freundlich and Langmuir isotherm gave the best fit experimental data. Also, antibacterial effects of this nano particles demonstrated the effect of CuFe2O4 NPs on bacteria more than used ZnFe2O4 NPs, and the percentage of bacterial death was increased according to increase the concentration of this materials.