Synthesis and application of magnetized nanoparticles to remove lead from drinking water: Taguchi design of experiment

Abstract

Contamination in drinking water from heavy metals like Pb2þ has severe effects on health. In this study, potato peel (PP) was used as the substrate and magnetic iron nanoparticles (MI) were deposited on PP using a co-precipitated method. Fourier transformation infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis confirmed the deposition of MI on PP. The L16 (4^4) method of Taguchi design of experiment (DOE) was used for the optimization of adsorption condition, i.e., at 6 pH, 10 min of contact time, and a dose of 15 g/L can give more than 90% removal efficiency of Pb2þ using PP-MI. Contour maps, Taguchi response analysis, and analysis of variance (ANOVA) suggested that pH has a dominant contribution in the removal of Pb2þ. The adsorption process was favorable, spontaneous, and exothermic in nature and was followed by pseudo second order kinetics. A comparison of the sorption capacity of PP-MI for Pb2þ with literature values suggested that PP-MI has good potential for the removal of Pb2þ.