Preparation and adsorption properties of chitosan-bound Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles for phenol removal from aqueous solution

The purpose of this study was the investigation of the removal of phenol with magnetic chitosan nanoparticles. The magnetic chitosan nanoparticles were prepared by co-precipitation method and characterised by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscope (FESM). Four independent variables, viz. contact time (10-90 min), pH of solution (2-10), initial phenol concentration (5-45 mg/l), and adsorbent dose (0.5-2.5 g/l) were transformed to coded values and quadratic model was built to predict the responses. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and t-test statistics were used to test the significance of the independent variables and their interactions. The experimental results showed that the particles size was in the range of 30-50 nm. The results showed that the Fe3O4-chitosan removed over 84% phenol within 30 min, pH 4, and sorbent dosage 1.12 g. The central composite design showed that the fundamental parameters were pH and initial phenol concentration had the main effect on phenol removal.