Reductive Degradation of High Concentration Nitrobenzene Using Nanoscale Zero-Valent Iron Particles Immobilized on Polyaniline Publisher



Dehghan S¹ ; Azari A² ; Kalantary RR³
Source: Desalination and Water Treatment Published:2018

Abstract

In this paper, we focused on the development, characterization and application of magnetic poly-aniline/nanozero-valent iron composite nanofibers (PANI/NZVI CNFs), as a nano-degrading agent. An economical and efficient approach was used for green synthesis of the PANI/NZVI CNFs for nitrobenzene (NB) degradation. A response surface methodology (RSM) was used to investigate the impact of experimental factors like pH, NB concentration and PANI/NZVI CNFs dosage) on the degradation of NB using the PANI/NZVI CNFs. Also, the Box-Behnken design (BBD), based on RSM, was used to optimize the variables such as solution pH (2.0–10.0), initial NB concentration (40–200 mg/L), and PANI/NZVI CNFs dosage (0.25–1.5 g/L). ANOVA analysis revealed that key variables were interaction between initial NB concentration, PANI/NZVI CNFs dosage and pH in quadratic term. The statistical analysis showed that PANI/NZVI CNFs dosage had a synergistic effect, whereas pH and NB concentrations had an antagonistic impact on degradation rate. High removal efficiency (>98%) was obtained under the optimal conditions (pH: 2, NB concentration.: 40 mg/L and PANI/NZVI CNFs dose 0.88 g/l). The analytical results of the GC/MS analysis identified that aniline, nitrosobenzene, phenyl hydroxylamine, azobenzene, and azoxybenzene were probably the main intermediate products of the NB degradation using PANI/NZVI CNFs. © 2018, Desalination Publications. All rights reserved.