Humic Acid/Quercetin Coated Magnetic Fe3O4 Nanoparticles For Adsorptive Removal of Cu2+ and Ni2+

Removal of metals and heavy metals from industrial wastewaters is a serious concern for water systems. In this study, environmentally friendly natural polymer coated, cost-effective, easy to operate HA/QR magnetic nanoparticles were suggested to overcome this problem, for the first time in literature. Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles were synthesized with co-precipitation technique and a core-shell structure was obtained with humic acid sodium salt (HA) solution. At the second step of the procedure, synthesized magnetic nanoparticles were coated with quercetin solution. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-Ray diffraction (XRD) and particle size analyses were performed to enlighten and characterize the structure. The newly synthesized nanoparticles were used for the batch-wise adsorption of copper and nickel metals, successfully. Maximum adsorption capacities were calculated as 14.61 mg/g for copper and 28.30 mg/g using 0.03 g adsorbents, at pH=7. Adsorption isotherms were evaluated and it was concluded that adsorption equilibrium fitted to both Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models, better correlated with Langmuir isotherm model