Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Effective Removal of Heavy Metals and Dyes
from Drinking Water Utilizing Bio-compatible
Magnetic Nanoparticle
Dwiptirtha Chattopadhyay and Keka Sarkar
Introduction
Heavy metal contamination in environment is being resulted mainly from natural
weathering processes and anthropogenic activities. Freshwater chromium (Cr) con-
centrations are dependent on soil chromium levels in the surrounding watershed
areas. Extensive industrial usage of chromium leads to generation of large volumes
of chromium-containing wastes that are discharged into the environment. Chromium
has been known to be extremely toxic at low concentration (Waalkes et al.
1992
;
Bruins et al.
2000
), although they have no signifi cant biological function so far
reported. Malachite Green (MG) has effective application as an anti-fungal, anti-
microbial and anti-parasitic agent in food industry (Afkhami et al.
2010
) but the
chemical causes toxic effects to human cells with mutagenic and carcinogenic prop-
erties as well.
Due to the low concentration of pollutants in water samples, separation and pre-
concentration before instrumental analysis are very important. Nanoscale iron par-
ticles represent a new generation of environmental remediation technologies that
could provide cost effective solutions to some of the most challenging environmen-
tal cleanup problems (Zhang
2003
). They pose high surface area along with high
surface reactivity and provide enormous fl exibility for in-situ application. Iron
nanoparticles are very effective for the transformation and detoxifi cation of a wide
variety of common hazardous contaminants. Application of magnetic property
along with further surface modifi cation of iron nanoparticle enhances the speed and
effi ciency of remediation.
Search WWH ::
Custom Search