Synthesis and Characterization of Zero Valent Iron Nanoparticles for Textile Wastewater Treatment

Textile manufacturing industry produces a huge amount of pollutants from its textile dyeing units. To combat the problem of water pollution, various processes are being already adopted by textile industries to treat wastewater before its discharge into the nearby environment. However, the inadequate traditional treatments are leading towards the development of different technologies with major concern on material’s high efficacy. One of the newest advancement in this area is nanotechnology. The zero valent iron nanoparticles (nZVI) are gaining extreme importance, due to its potential capabilities of reducing chemical substances, dye colour and other constituents from the waste effluent. In the present article, synthesis of nZVI particles was carried out by borohydride chemical reduction method using ferrous heptahydrate sulphate salt. Its characterization such as surface morphology and structure was analyzed by using X-Ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Brunauer- Emmett-Teller method (BET). Further, the stability of nanoparticles was also investigated via chemical and thermal processes at different pH ranges and temperatures. The results revealed that the synthesized nanoparticles were as per the available literature in terms of size, surface morphology, structure & stability. Hence, ready for the batch experimental studies on laboratory scale.