An investigation of the removal of nonylphenol from contaminated water by iron oxides: A computational (hyperchem) and attenuated total reflectance-fourier transform infrared (atr-ftir) spectroscopy study

The adsorption of Nonylphenol onto the surface of iron minerals was studied here using spectroscopic and computational methods. Adsorption characteristics of prominent peaks from suspended and adsorbed Nonylphenol on the surface iron minerals were studied by ATR-FTIR spectroscopy. The adsorption characteristics were then used to test the feasibility of using iron minerals to naturally removal these persistent emerging organic contaminants from polluted waters. Three types of iron oxides were studied. Goethite, micro-hematite and nano-hematite were used as adsorption/ removal agents to investigate their ability to removal Nonylphenol from suspended contaminated solution. The highest "removal capability" was observed when nano-hematite was used, which removed about 80% of the Nonylphenol from suspended solution. Micro-Hematite and goethite each removed approximately 60% and 50% of NP respectively. Since nano-hematite had the largest measured surface area, we could relate that adsorption/removal capability of iron oxides to its surface area (or surface sites) available for adsorption.