Abstract
In this article, the multifunctional behavior of novel, efficient, and cost-effective humic acid–coated nanoceria (HA@CeO2 NPs) was utilized for the sorptive removal of U(VI), Cr(VI), and F− ions at different conditions. The production cost of HA@CeO2 was $19.28/kg and was well characterized by DLS, FESEM, HRTEM, FTIR, XRD, XPS, and TGA. Batch adsorption study for U(VI) (at pH ~ 8), Cr(VI) (at pH ~ 1), and F− (at pH ~ 2) revealed that the maximum percentage of sorption was > 80% for all the cases. From the contact time experiment, it was concluded that pseudo-second-order kinetics followed, and hence, the process should be a chemisorption. The adsorption study revealed that U(VI) and Cr(VI) followed the Freundlich isotherm, whereas F− followed the Langmuir isotherm. Maximum adsorption capacity for F− was 96 mg g−1. Experiments in real water suggest that adsorption is decreased in Kaljani River water (~ 12% for Cr(VI) and ~ 11% for F−) and Kochbihar Lake water (25.04% for Cr(VI) and 20.5% for F−) because of competing ion effect. Mechanism was well established by the kinetic study as well as XPS analysis. Because of high adsorption efficiency, HA@CeO2 NPs can be used for the removal of other harmful water contaminants to make healthy aquatic life as well as purified drinking water.
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Acknowledgements
All the authors would like to thank Dr. A. Vinod Kumar and Dr. D. K. Aswal, HS&EG, BARC, Mumbai, India, for their support. We would also like to thank the Department of Chemistry of Cooch Behar Panchanan Barma University for the financial and laboratory support needed to complete the research work.
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CD: investigation, formal analysis, and writing—original draft; VS, SP, VP, BP, PD, and DD: investigation, formal analysis, and writing draft; GB and PS: methodology, funding acquisition, supervision, and writing—review and editing.
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Das, C., Panigrahi, S., Saha, V. et al. Humic acid-nanoceria composite as a sustainable adsorbent for simultaneous removal of uranium(VI), chromium(VI), and fluoride ions from aqueous solutions. Environ Sci Pollut Res (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-024-32730-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-024-32730-2