Abstract
Producing clean water from wastewater is a major issue due to environmental pollution. There is in particular a need for cheap sorbents to filter water. Here we developed a method to produce sorbing nanoparticles from water treatment residues using high-energy ball milling. Results show that 75 min of milling of residues yields particles sized lower than 100 nm, according to scanning and transmission electron microscopy. The sorption capacity of nanoparticles, of 50.0 mg Pg−1, is 30 times higher than the sorption maxima of unmilled residues, of 1.7 mg Pg−1. Our method is therefore simple, efficient, and cheap, and enhances highly the adsorption capacity of treatment residues.
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We gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Egyptian Science and Technology Development Fund (STDF 4977-2013).
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Elkhatib, E.A., Mahdy, A.M. & Salama, K.A. Green synthesis of nanoparticles by milling residues of water treatment. Environ Chem Lett 13, 333–339 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10311-015-0506-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10311-015-0506-6