Even low concentrations
of pollutants in water, particularly
heavy
metals, can significantly affect the ecosystem and human health. Adsorption
has been determined to be one of the most effective techniques of
removing pollution from wastewater among the various strategies. To
remove heavy metals such as Zn
2+
and Pb
2+
, we
prepared a silica-coated CuMgFe
2
O
4
magnetic
adsorbent using sol–gel method and tested it for wastewater
treatment. X-ray diffraction investigation validated the creation
of cubic spinel structure, while morphological analysis showed that
silica coating reduces the particle size but boosts the surface roughness
of the nanoparticles and also reduces the agglomeration between particles.
UV–visible spectroscopy indicates a rise in bandgap and magnetic
characteristics analysis indicates low values of magnetization due
to silica coating. The kinetic and isotherm parameters for heavy metal
ions adsorption onto silica-coated Cu
0.50
Mg
0.50
Fe
2
O
4
nanoparticles are calculated by applying
pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order, Langmuir and Freundlich models.
Adsorption kinetics revealed that the pseudo-second-order and Langmuir
models are the best fit to explain adsorption kinetics. Synthesized
adsorbent revealed 92% and 97% removal efficiencies for Zn
2+
and Pb
2+
ions, respectively.