Water resources are becoming more confined in the world. Recycling waste water has become mandatory for the sustainable maintenance of water resources. Water processing can be done by various methods among which photocatalytic degradation is one of the effective treatment processes to be adopted. The current work focuses on the synthesis of CuO nanoparticles by biotemplate assisted method and testing the nanoparticles degradation efficiency against methyl orange under sunlight. The FTIR of the synthesized sample shows characteristic peaks at 521 cm−1, 474 cm−1 confirming the presence of CuO nanoparticles. The crystalline size of the sample was found to be 27.99 nm. The degradation of methyl orange under sunlight using CuO nanoparticles with 72% efficiency in 4 h was attested.

Magnetic support of NdFeO₃ was synthesized to solve the problem of inorganic arsenic species contamination in water. NdFeO₃ nanoparticles showed an adsorption capacity of 54.2 and 156.0 mg/g, for As (III) and As (V) respectively. The adsorption isotherms showed a good adsorption performance at pH 3 and 9 for both As species, showing more adsorption capacity for As (V) than As (III). Adsorption of As (III) on NdFeO₃ showed a good fit with a pseudo-first order kinetic model and with the Avrami model. The reaction was endothermic, spontaneous, and exhibited increasing entropy. Looking to improve the arsenical remediation, the NdFeO₃ was associated with the biofilm from Microbacterium oxydans AE038–20. The biofilm attached to the nanoparticles showed good stability and was characterized by TGA, SEM, and FTIR. Thus, a magnetic nanocomposite (mNFO@biofilm) was successfully fabricated and used as an adsorbent for the simultaneous removal of As (III) and As (V). mNFO@biofilm displayed a remarkable adsorption performance for both As (III) and As (V) removal at acidic and basic pH (3 and 9). The microbial biofilm attached to nanoparticles of NdFeO₃ facilitated the remotion process showing an arsenic adsorption capacity of 84.80%. Additionally, the mNFO@biofilm improved the arsenical removal not only by the best adsorption than the nanoparticles alone but also was able to oxidize the As (III) to As (V). Finally, the NdFeO₃ nanoparticles were recovered by removing the biofilm by heating. Thus, the recovery and potential reusability of these nanoparticles improved their application for arsenic water remediation.

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Jenny
Journal Co-ordinator
Journal of Nano Research & Applications