Eliminación de arsénico de soluciones acuosas mediante nanopartículas de hierro sintetizadas con extracto de cáscaras de mandarina

Abstract

Worldwide, water pollution is a serious problem that affects human health and nature. Among the biggest pollutants are heavy metals such as arsenic (As), which are generated mainly by human activities such as agriculture and occur in high concentrations in bodies of water. In this context, this research aimed to generate magnetic iron nanoparticles (FeNPs) synthesized with mandarin peel extract, to eliminate (As) from aqueous solutions. The precipitation method was applied using the mandarin peel extract with a concentration of 75g of pulverized peel. The (FeNPs) were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), FT-IR and UV-Vis spectroscopy. For the adsorption study, the atomic absorption spectrophotometer was used and contact times, amount of (FeNPs), temperature, pH and PPMs were analyzed. Within the results, it was determined that the shape of the (FeNPs) was regular, almost crystalline and with sizes between 70 and 300 nm, in the spectra characteristic bands of citrus fruits were evident at 3313.10 cm-1, 2148.31 cm-1 and 1654.62 cm-1. The removal analyzed in concentrations of 10 ppm of (As), in times between 10 and 30 min, achieved levels greater than 99 %, while, with 50, 80 and 120 ppm of (As), removal levels greater than 95 % were obtained. In conclusion, it can be mentioned that the removal process is more effective at low temperatures, less than 35 °C and, in the case of pH, it is effective in samples with acidic pH (1 and 3). Under these considerations, the developed method can be considered viable and should continue with a greater number of tests to make its large-scale application viable.