With the current state of affairs, the rapid population growth and development processes have led to a worsening water crisis. The decline in freshwater amounts is getting more progressively critical. It is actually becoming a cutting-edge issue due to the need for water to maintain life on earth. Therefore, turning wastewater into clean safe water for agriculture and industrial sectors has made a positive contribution to the world’s clean water crisis. In the current context, more than 66% of the wastewater in the West Bank is eventually released to the environment without any treatment, of which it has detrimental ecological and public health impacts for all residents. Accordingly, innovative techniques for wastewater treatment are needed. In the recent years, nanoparticle technology has shown very promising performances in the treatment and recycling processes, of which they showed a superb performance in pollution removal and toxicity mitigation. Recent studies have confirmed the unique chemical and physical characteristics of nanoparticles as adsorbents and catalysts (Nanosorbcats), and their high ability in cleaning up wastewater systems.

Accordingly, the present study investigated the employment of three types of in-house prepared silicate-based nanosorbcats with active metal oxide sites (SBNs) for cleaning up synthetic and textile wastewaters. The prepared SBNs were employed in batch modes for the adsorptive of cationic and anionic organic model molecules in both single and binary systems. Extended Sips, Freundlich, and Langmuir adsorption isotherm models for multi-component-adsorption systems were applied to help in understanding the adsorption behavior of those molecules. Kinetics were investigated by applying the external mass transfer model. Our in-house prepared SBNs showed high uptakes, high affinities, and fast kinetics in comparison with other conventional bulk and nanoadsorbents. Interestingly, the adsorption tends to be competitive at low concentrations and selective at high concentrations of the cationic organic molecule. In the case of multi-component adsorption systems, synergistic effect has been observed, which caused an enhancement in the adsorptive capacities and affinities of both cationic and anionic organics. The effect of pH was also studied to investigate the electrostatic interactions. The regeneration, uptake saturation capacities, and the performances of spent SBNs after each adsorption cycle was studied and compared with virgin SBNs. The adsorption mechanism and the reliable results of this study will be elaborated and discussed further during the presentation.

Conference Title

2018 AIChE Annual Meeting

Conference Country

United States of America

Conference Date

Oct. 28, 2018 - Nov. 2, 2018

Conference Sponsor

Project ID: ANNU-MoHE-1819-Sc019 Sponsored by MoHE and An-Najah National University

Additional Info

Conference Website