ADSORPTIVE REMOVAL OF PHOSPHATE IONS USING MAGNETIC NANO-BIOCOMPOSITE OF CHITOSAN 𝑭𝒆𝟑𝑶𝟒 : KINETIC AND THERMODYNAMIC INVESTIGATION

Phosphates present in wastewaters originates from detergents, food residues and faeces, as well as contaminants generated by industrial plants, which manufacture, artificial fer¬tilisers, matches and synthetic washing agents. In Western Europe alone, the mean content of phosphorus in wastewaters exceeds 250,000 tonnes annually. Environment pollutions originating from municipal and industrial wastewater treat¬ment plants pose a severe problem as they cause strong contamination of rivers, waters and ground waters. In this study Chitosan/Fe3O4 synthesized was used a nanobioadsorbent to remove phosphate ions from aqueous solutions. Phosphate removal by Chitosan/Fe3O4 was investigated using batch mode experiments. Thermodynamic test indicate that phosphate sorption to the Chitosan/Fe3O4 slight increased with increasing temperature indicating the spontaneous and endothermic nature of sorption process (∆H = 5.99 KJ.mol-1; ∆S = 49.15 J.K-1mol-1; ∆G = -8.65 KJ.mol-1). The kinetics investigation revealed that the pseudo second order model is a more suitable for describing the adsorption of phosphate onto Chitosan/Fe3O4 nanobiocomposite.