Engineered Iron Nanoparticles via Green Routes and Their Applications for Textile Wastewater Treatment

Textile wastewaters are characterized by high chemical oxygen demand (COD) concentration, strong color, high pH and temperature, and low biodegradability. Conventional treatment methods are considered to be inefficient to comply with the discharge limits. Recently, nano zero-valent iron (nZVI) technology has received increasing attention of the scientific community as an emerging technology for treatment of polluted streams. Due to smaller particle size, larger surface area and higher surface reactivity of iron nanoparticles, the removal of pollutants occur very rapidly. In this work, we synthesized nZVI employing green chemistry principles in a chemical reduction reaction. Iron precursor solution (FeSO4) was reduced by plant extracts that contain polyphenols. Plant polyphenols are known to possess strong reducing agent properties and act as effective metal chelators. The objective of this study was to characterize the green synthesized iron nanoparticles in terms of size and zeta potential parameters under various synthesis conditions (pH, precursor concentration and precursor/extract volume ratio) and compare the reactivity of the engineered nanoparticles for textile wastewater treatment. Green tea leaves-GT and Rose leaves-R were selected as the plant sources. Plant extracts were examined in terms of their Total Phenolic Content (TPC) expressed as Gallic Acid Equivalent (GAE). Rose leaves were found to possess 2062 mg/L TPC whereas, Green Tea leaves were found to have 1882 mg/L in grinded powder form. Results showed that 74% color removal along with 18% TOC removal could be achieved with 5 ppm of GT-ZVI nanoparticles synthesized at a 2/1 ratio (v/v) of precursor to extract. With the same concentration of R-ZVI nanoparticles, 78% color removal and 40% of TOC removal were observed.