Efficient treatment of raw leachate using magnetic ore iron oxide nanoparticles Fe₂O₃ as nanoadsorbents

Abstract Natural Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles was successfully investigated in the treatment of raw landfill leachate. Pre-characterisation of raw landfill leachate was done to identify the concentration of certain pollutants; which the effluent concentration of COD, NH₃-N, and color were 2081 mg/L, 449 mg/L and 2851 Pt-Co, respectively. Following mechanical milling to reach the nanoparticle size, the exploration of structural characteristic of Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles was done. X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and Energy Dispersive X-Ray (EDX) were used to distinguish the structure and morphology of the nanoadsorbents. The results revealed that the particle size were varied between 21 nm–70 nm. FT-IR confirms the phase purity of the natural nanoparticles. The adsorption of COD, NH₃-N, and color from landfill leachate onto the novel of natural Fe₂O₃ was studied with variable parameters such as contact time, pH of the leachate, dose, and temperature by applying the method of batch adsorption. It was found that the adsorption treatment was sharply high at the first stage and reached a stable state condition with 97 %, 43.8 %, and 75.9 % removal of color, NH₃-N and COD, respectively. In addition, the adsorption capacity was about 78.8 %, 31 %, and 59.3 % for color, NH₃-N, and COD, respectively of the initial saturation adsorption capacity after being used three times. Thus, iron oxide magnetic nanoparticles (Fe₂O₃) was found efficient for treatment of raw landfill leachate and it could be further studied for other types of wastewater and polluted water.