Because access to clean water is a significant challenge of the 21st century, especially in the developing world, robust and inexpensive technologies capable of removing a variety of chemical contaminants are needed. One approach is to use the adsorption of pollutants on the surface of magnetic nanoparticles to efficiently treat water. Magnetite nanoparticles (Fe3O4 NPs) can be readily prepared without specialized facilities or reagents, have a high relative surface area and their surfaces can be tuned to target a variety of pollutants. We have synthesized Fe3O4 NPs capped with citrate or chitosan and investigated their efficacy across a variety of conditions. The chitosan-capped particles favor the removal of negatively charged organic compounds while citrate-capped nanoparticles remove heavy metals. We show that adsorption capacity for model heavy metals zinc (Zn2+) and cadmium (Cd2+) is strongly affected by the complexation of the metal cation, demonstrating how metal speciation must be more closely examined to anticipate how variations in water matrices can affect the performance of adsorption-based water treatment tools. The pH-dependence of the removal of both organic and inorganic contaminants was also examined, including how pH adjustments can be used to clean the particle surface so the nanoparticles can be recycled, which would improve the overall sustainability of this approach.

Development of magnetic nanoparticles for the treatment of water

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