Textile effluent treatment using a fixed bed reactor using bimetallic Fe/Ni nanoparticles supported on chitosan spheres

Abstract In this work, Fe/Ni bimetallic nanoparticles (BN-Fe/Ni) were synthesized and supported on chitosan beads (BN-Fe/Ni-CSs). The physical-chemical properties of BN-Fe/Ni-CSs were determined as density, mass, diameter, the degree of deacetylation, and relative humidity of the chitosan beads (CSs) were determined. BN-Fe/Ni and BN-Fe/Ni-CSs have applied color removal of raw effluent (RE) from a textile mill, obtaining 100 % color removal in 10 and 20 min, respectively, in batch experiments. A fixed bed reactor (FBR) with BN-Fe/Ni-CSs was constructed and the treatment of RE in this reactor resulted in approximately 70 % removal (time: 11 h, volume: 5 L). Contaminants removal from RE in the BN-Fe/Ni-CSs FBR occurs through adsorption and degradation processes. Removals of ADMI color and chemical oxygen demand were observed. The treated effluent showed reduced acute toxicity, 87 % less when compared to the RE before treatment. These results showed that the BN-Fe/Ni-CSs applied in the reactor proved to be efficient for treating the effluent in terms of the studied parameters.