Synthesis and application of alginate immobilised banana peels nanocomposite in rare earth and radioactive minerals removal from mine water

Abstract

This study describes the preparation, characterisation and application of pelletised immobilised alginate/ montmorillonite/banana peels nanocomposite (BPNC) in a fixed-bed column for continuous adsorption of rare earth elements and radioactive minerals from water. The materials was characterised by Fourier transform infrared, X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy analyses. Analyses indicated that the pellets are porous and spherical in shape. FT-IR analysis showed that the functional groups responsible for the coordination of metal ions were the carboxylic (-COO-) and siloxane (Si-O-Si and Si-O-Al) groups. XRD analysis showed two additional peaks which were attributed to alginate and montmorillonite. The influence of the initial concentration, bed depth and flow rate were investigated using synthetic and real mine water in order to determine the breakthrough behaviour of both minerals. The processed bed volume, adsorbent exhaustion rate and service time, were also explored as performance indices for the adsorbent material. Furthermore, the breakthrough data were fitted to both the Thomas and Bohart-Adams models. The BPNC exhibited high affinity for U, Th, Gd and La in the real mine water sample. However, studies may still be required using waters from different environments in order to determine the robustness of BPNC.

Isolation and Investigation of Natural Rare Earth Metal Chelating Agents From Calothrix brevissima - A Step Towards Unraveling the Mechanisms of Metal Biosorption

“…Nevertheless, biosorption has many advantages, for instance, easy recuperation of adsorbed material, high efficiency at low metal concentrations and cost efficient biomass production ( González et al, 2017 ). Fungal and bacterial biomass as well as agricultural waste have been investigated as promising biosorbent materials ( Abbas et al, 2014 ; Atiba-Oyewo et al, 2019 ; Gallardo et al, 2020 ). Biomass derived from algae and cyanobacteria is of special interest for the development of biosorbtion materials because of the presence of many functional cellular compounds that promote metal adsorption, which lead to high adsorption capacities ( Kanchana et al, 2014 ).…”

“…A promising environmentally friendly approach for the removal or recovery of metal contaminants from aqueous wastes is biosorption ( Abbas et al, 2014 ). Different living and non-living bio-materials, such as fungal- or bacterial biomass and agricultural waste, have been reported as suitable biosorbents ( Kumar et al, 2014 ; Atiba-Oyewo et al, 2019 ). So far, various autotrophic microorganisms, including cyanobacteria, green- and brown algae, have also been used and investigated for the removal of metals from aqueous solutions ( Romera et al, 2006 ; Mustapha and Halimoon 2015 ; Singh 2020 ).…”