In this research dobera leaves (DL), an agricultural waste, available in large quantity in south region of Saudi Arabia, were used as low-cost adsorbent for removal of metal ions such as Pb(II). Batch operation was used to study the equilibrium behavior of DL. The effects of initial concentration of Pb(II), solution pH, contact time and adsorbent dose were evaluated. To study the kinetics of adsorption of Pb(II) onto DL, pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order and intra-particle diffusion were used. Adsorption process undergoes pseudo-second-order kinetic as proved by the high value of R 2. Furthermore, to design the equilibrium data of adsorption of process, four adsorption isotherm models such as Langmuir, Freundlich Temkin and Dubinin-Radushkevich (D-R) were used. It is found that Langmuir equation has the highest value of R 2 (0.999) compared with other models. In presences of a mixture of Pb(II)/Ni(II), DL were found to be selective for Pb(II) ions with a high adsorptive capacity of 83 mg/g and show favorable adsorption with RL < 1. In addition, preliminary results indicate that DL are very effective adsorbent for the removal of Pb(II) ions (>90%) from drinking water with less competition of other ions present in water.
Three zinc-phosphate-solubilizing fungi (ZPSF) were isolated from rhizospheric soil cultivated with Sorghum bicolor L. The fungal isolates were identified as Aspergillus chevalieri, Fusarium moniliforme, and Trichoderma harzianum. The results showed that halo zone formation by ZPSF on Pikovskaya (PVK) agar medium plates was an indicator of zinc phosphate (ZP) solubilization. The lowest in pH of the inoculated medium containing ZP was observed with A. chevalieri, followed by T. harzianum, followed by F. moniliforme, compared with the initial pH (6.5) of the non-inoculated medium. ZP solubilization processes at different temperatures (10 °C, 20 °C, 30 °C, and 40 °C) were conducted using ZPSF at different doses of ZP (0.5 g/L, 1 g/L, and 2 g/L). The released P, to P2O5, was monitored during the solubilization process. The released phosphorus increased as the temperature increased, with the greatest values of phosphorus obtained with F. moniliforme, A. chevalieri, and T. harzianum being 11.54 mg/L, 24.40 mg/L, and 28.40 mg/L, at 30 °C and a dose of 2 g/L of ZP, respectively. In contrast, the smallest values of phosphorus were 11.89 mg/L, 8.2 mg/L, and 7.97 mg/L, at 10 °C and a dose of 0.5 g/L of ZP, with F. moniliforme, A. chevalieri, and T. harzianum, respectively.
Antidepressants are one of the main pollutants in the aquatic environment. They are being widely studied due to their widespread use, possible health effects, and partial removal from wastewater treatment plants by conventional methods. Photocatalysis is an effective and ecologically beneficial method in wastewater treatment. In the present study, the photocatalytic degradation of sertraline hydrochloride (SERT) in water using nano-sized zinc oxide (ZnO-NPs) was investigated. The ZnO-NPs were synthesized from zinc gluconate as a precursor by the sol–gel method. The crystal structure, morphology, surface charge, and textural properties were characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray analyses, transmission electron microscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, zeta potential, and N2 adsorption–desorption measurements. The removal of SERT in water was explored by different processes: H2O2/UV, ZnO-NPs/H2O2/UV, and ZnO-NPs/UV. Our results indicate that the combination of both UV illumination and the ZnO-NP as a catalyst was necessary for the efficient degradation of the drug. Nearly complete removal of SERT (98.7%) was achieved in 30 min with the ZnO-NPs/UV process at room temperature. The photodegradation of SERT follows first-order kinetics with a rate constant of 0.0678 min−1. The results reveal that SERT degradation with ZnO-NPs/UV is pH-dependent, as the maximum drug removal was achieved at pH 11. Initial drug concentration, catalyst dose, and hydrogen peroxide concentration were also crucial in the removal of SERT. Our findings indicate that the high specific surface area and porous structure of ZnO-NP enhance its photocatalytic performance toward photodegradation of SERT, i.e., ZnO-NP is an efficient nanophotocatalyst for the degradation of SERT under UV irradiation.
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