Zinc Oxide-urea Formaldehyde Nanocomposite Film As Low-cost Adsorbent For Removal Of Cu(II) From Aqueous Solution

¹Department of Polymer Science, Bhaskaracharya College of Applied Sciences, University of Delhi, New Delhi 110 075, India  

²Research and Technology Development Centre, Sharda University, Greater Noida, 201 306, India

Adv. Mater. Lett., 2015, 6 (2), pp 172-178

DOI: 10.5185/amlett.2014.5604

Publication Date (Web): Feb 08, 2015

Copyright © IAAM-VBRI Press

E-mail: sarojshukla@yahoo.co.in

Abstract

Copper is widely used in different industries and found its significant loss during the manufacturing and processing. The lost Cu is discharged in the effluent, thus adsorption of heavy metals is an important technology for treatment of wastewater containing different types of selected heavy metals. In this study, nanosize (~95 nm) zinc oxide was prepared through KNO₃-NaNO₃ eutectic melt at 450 °C. The obtained ZnO was encapsulated in urea-formaldehyde (UF) resin during acid catalysed polymerization process. The characterization of ZnO and ZnO-UF were made by X- ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning electron microscope (SEM) and Infra red spectroscopic (FT-IR) techniques. The prepared ZnO encapsulated in urea-formaldehyde resin casted in the form of film (~0.5 mm thickness) was used to remove 80% Cu (II) content from aqueous solution in 15 minutes. Further, the adsorption process was investigated and data was explained with Langmuir adsorption isotherm model.

Keywords

Nanocomposite, eutectic melts, Cu removal, isotherm model.