Evaluating the Efficiency of Microwaved Sludge in the Removal of 2, 4-Dinitrophenol from Aqueous Solutions: Equilibrium and Kinetics Studies
Hadi Niknejad 1, Ali Esrafili 2,3, Majid Kermani 2,3, Mahdi Farzadkia 2,3*, Somayeh Hoseinvandtabar 1, Samira Mojerlou 4 , Khadijeh Sajjadpour 5 , Hassan Rasoulzadeh 6,1
1 Department of Environmental Health Engineering, School of Public Health and Safety, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
2 Department of Environmental Health Engineering, School of Public Health, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
3 Research Center for Environmental Health Technology, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
4 Behshahr Health Center, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Mazandaran, Iran.
5 Department of Psychology, Faculty of Educational Sciences and Psychology, Payame Noor University, Amol, Iran.
6 Department of Environmental Health Engineering, School of Public Health, Bam University of Medical Sciences, Bam, Iran.
A R T I C L E I N F O |
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ABSTRACT |
ORIGINAL ARTICLE |
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Introduction: Nitrophenol compounds are toxic compounds found in industrial wastewaters. 2,4-dinitrophenol is the most dangerous compound among phenolic compounds. The aim of this study was to evaluate the removal of 2,4-DNP from wastewater by microwaved dried sludge adsorbent.
Materials and Methods: The results of 2,4-DNP removal were discontinuously obtained by the high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) at a wavelength of 360 nm with various effective factors, such as contact time, pH, initial concentration of 2,4-DNP, and microwaved sludge dose. Finally, the results were analyzed using the kinetics and isotherm models. The equilibrium time was obtained 120 min. The maximum removal rate was obtained at pH 7.
Results: The findings indicated that the removal efficiency increased by increasing the adsorbent dose and decreasing the 2,4-DNP concentration. It was revealed that the removal of 2,4-DNP by microwaved sludge was 86%. The correlation coefficient value of linear and non-linear regression showed that kinetic studies follow the pseudo-second order model and isotherm studies follow the Freundlich isotherm model. The adsorption method relied entirely on pH and affected the adsorbent area attributes, ionization rate, and Delete percentage. When the pH was high, there was competition for the adsorption sites between hydroxide ions (OH) and 2,4-DNP molecules. At first, the adsorption process was high speed and gradually reached a stable level, because after a while, the adsorption sites become saturated.
Conclusion: As the absorbent dose increases, the efficiency of the adsorption process increases, because larger amounts of adsorbent cause higher adsorption places. |
Article History:
Received: 23 February 2022
Accepted: 20 April 2022
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*Corresponding Author:
Mahdi Farzadkia
Email:
Mahdi.farzadkia@gmail.com
Tel:
+989119136455 |
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Keywords:
2,4-Dinitrophenol,
Adsorption,
Sludge,
Aqueous Solution,
Kinetic. |
Citation: Niknejad H, Esrafili A, Kermani M, et al. Evaluating the Efficiency of Microwaved Sludge in the Removal of 2, 4-Dinitrophenol from Aqueous Solutions: Equilibrium and Kinetics Studies. J Environ Health Sustain Dev. 2022; 7(2): 1647-59.
Introduction
Industrial advances have led to increased environmental pollution caused by hazardous pollutants from human activities. These hazardous pollutants include insecticides, combustion products, hydrocarbon solvents, and nitrophenols 1, 2, which contribute significantly to soil and water pollution and can affect aquatic and soil ecosystems3. Recently, phenolic compounds have been widely used in industry and daily life and have become one of the common pollutants in water4. Eleven phenolic compounds are classified as early pollutants by the USEPA classification, and their maximum permissible concentrations in water are 1-20 ppb5. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends 0.001 mg/L as the permissible concentration of phenol in drinking water 6. USEPA has recommended a permissible limit of 0.1 mg in wastewater 7. Major sources of phenolic wastewaters include refineries, fuel production facilities, wood industries, and chemicals industries 8. One of the most resistant phenolic compounds is nitrophenol, which found in industrial wastewater due to its significant solubility and stability in water. These compounds represent a significant threat to human health in the aquatic ecosystem because of their remarkable toxicity and carcinogenic nature9. The most toxic compound among the six types of dinitrophenol compounds is 2,4-DNP. Wastewaters containing 2,4-DNP often need treatment before being discharged into the water in order to meet the environmental standards. The environmental impacts of 2,4-DNP are of concern due to their high toxicity in wastewater. Industries such as the paint industry, explosives production industries, germicides and fungicides, tanning industries, and pharmaceutical industries generate this pollutant10. The most common methods employed for removingphenol from aqueous solutions are solvent extraction, reverse osmosis, electrochemical methods, and chemical oxidation11. Since the treatment of phenol-containing wastewaters is difficult or impossible with conventional biological treatment processes, it is necessary to use advanced treatment technologies to remove these compounds and their adverse effects 12. Problems, such as high costs, low efficiency, and production of toxic byproducts are limiting factors for the widespread application of some of these removal strategies. Among physicochemical processes, adsorption technology has received widespread attention over recent years 13-15. Including processes for removing contaminants from sewage, which has been widely used recently, is the use of disposal sludge produced from wastewater treatment plants. Sludge refers to the sedimentations in wastewater treatment and water treatment processes at various stages, which can be produced by primary or secondary sedimentation basins. Most of the sludge is currently discarded, and the treatment and preparation of sludge impose high costs on wastewater treatment plants16. When the sludge is dried using microwaves, it causes the solids to coagulate and the water in the sludge solids to decrease. As a result, the sludge was almost entirely dehydrated and sterilized 17. The non-living biomass is used in industrial applications as bioadsorbent, since it does not require nutrients and can be easily used in high toxicity environments 18. sewage sludge is an economical adsorbent for the adsorption of organic contaminations owing to the availability of inexpensive and indigenous materials. Its efficacy for the removal of nickel, 4-chlorophenol19 , and organic compounds 20 has been proven. In the present study, the efficacy of microwaved sludge for the elimination of 2,4-DNP from synthetic solution was evaluated.
Materials and Methods
This experimental research investigated the ability of microwaved sludge to eliminate a synthetic solution of 2,4 DNP. 2,4-DNP obtained from a German company called Merck KGaA 21. The 2,4-DNP structure and its physicochemical characteristics are shown in Table 1. A stock solution was prepared by dissolving 1 g of 2,4-DNP in deionized distilled water and diluted to 1000 ml. The phenolic solution for the adsorption analysis were prepared by diluting the stock solution to give different concentrations within the range of 10 to 100 mgL-1 for 2,4-DNP. Stock solution was preserved in a covered dark bottle until ready to use. The pH of the experiment solution was was set by 0.1 normal hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide (pH meter HQ40d, USA). To prepare the microwaved sludge, the required discharged sludge was first obtained from a treatment plant in the south of Tehran. The collected sludge samples were washed several times with water to remove excess contaminants and then dried in an oven for 48 hours at 60 °C18. For manufacturing of the sludge microwaved, The dried adsorbent in the previous step was chemically processed with a chemical solution of ZnCl2, KOH and H3PO4 2 M, 2 M and 3 M respectively. For these chemical solutions, the pH of the solution was fixed at 6.5. The Distilled water was used to wash the prepared adsorbent and then passed through a filter paper. The modified adsorbent was heated in a microwave for 7 min. In the next step, it was screened in sizes of 0.2 to 0.3 mm using standard sieves 22.
Kinetics experiments
The aim of these assays was to determine the changes of 2,4-DNP adsorption at concentrations 10, 30, 50, 70 and 100 mg/L, pH levels 3,5,7,9, and 11, contact times 10, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, and 150 min and to obtain the equilibrium time of the pollutant adsorption onto the adsorbent and determine their optimum values. All samples were filtered by Whatman filters, passed through 0.45 μm pore size PTFE syringe filters and then measured using the high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) model CECIL CE4900 at a wavelength of 360 nm.
Equilibrium experiments (isotherms)
These experiments were performed by varying the adsorbent dose used (0.1, 0.5, 1, and 1.5 g) and the optimized values of the factors, such as time, pH, and concentration. Finally, Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption models and kinetics equations for the adsorption of 2,4-DNP onto the adsorbent were separately studied.
(1) |
qeq = (C0- Ct)VM |
(2) |
R = C0-CtC0 |
The equation (1) was used to calculate the adsorption capacity (qe) and the equation (2) was used to calculate the removal efficiency of the solution. Ct and C0 are the primary and final concentrations of the contaminant in aqueous solution (mgL-1), M (g) and V (mL) are the mass of the sludge adsorbent and the volume of the aqueous solution, respectively 23, 24.
The Information gathered from the several stages of the examinations and the findings of the analysis of the collected samples and other measured parameters were analyzed using Excel software.
Table 1: Specifications of 2, 4-DNP
Molecular weight (g/mol) |
Chemical formula |
Characteristic |
Form |
Color |
184.11 |
C6H4N2O5 |
2,4-dinitrophenol |
Crystalline solid |
Yellow |
Ethical Issue
The present study was conducted with the approval of Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran (Code: IR.IUMS.REC 1396.9511388008).
Results
The properties of the adsorbent used are described in Table 2. Also, SEM images of microwaved sludge adsorbent are indicated in Figure 1.
Effect of time
The adsorption of 2,4-dinitrophenol onto the microwaved sludge was investigated by examining the contact time to determine the equilibrium time. The findings indicated that the highest elimination percentage was at 60 minutes and then decreased and reached equilibrium at 120 minutes (Figure
2).
Effect of initial pH
The data showed that the adsorption was highly correlated with pH, as it affected the adsorption efficiency, the degree of ionization and the adsorbent surface characteristics. The highest removal percentage of the pollutant was generated at pH 7, so that the removal efficiency increased from the acidic pH to the neutral pH, and decreased from the neutral pH to the alkaline pH (Figure 3).
Effect of concentration 2,4-DNP
The effect of primary concentration of 2,4-dinitrophenol on the elimination percentage was investigated by microwaved sludge in the range of 10 to 100 mg/L. The findings showed that the removal rate of 2,4-dinitrophenol decreased by increasing the concentration of 2,4-DNP. So that by increasing the concentration of 2,4-dinitrophenol from 10 mgL-1 to 400 mgL-1, the removal rate of 2,4-DNP decreased from 78.3% to 49.9% (Figure 4).
Effect of various doses of microwaved adsorbent
The adsorption dependence of 2,4-DNP on adsorbent dose at doses of 0.1 to 1.5(g 40 1/mL) of the sample was investigated. in this stage, only the adsorbent dose parameter was variable and the other optimized parameters were constant. The results showed that the adsorption rate decreased by decreasing the amount of adsorbent (Figure 5).
Table 2: Chemical and physical properties of microwaved sludge adsorbent
Microwaved sludge |
Characteristics |
Brown |
Color |
98.76 |
BET surface area (m2/g) |
7.2 |
pHzpc |
0.2-0.3 |
Particle size (mm) |
0.79 |
Particle porosity |
Figure 1: Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) of microwaved sludge
Figure 2: Effect of contact times on the removal of 2, 4 DNP by adsorbent microwaved sludge (experimental condition; adsorbent dosage = 0.5 g 40 mL-1, C0 = 50 mg L-1 and initial pH = 7 )
Figure 3: Effect of pH on the removal of 2,4 DNP on adsorbent microwaved sludge (experimental condition; adsorbent dosage = 0.5 g 40 mL-1, C0 = 50 mg L-1 and contact time = 60 min)
Figure 4: Effect of various concentrations of 2,4-dinitrophenol on adsorbent microwaved sludge (experimental condition; adsorbent dosage = 0.5 g 40 mL-1, optimal time and optimal pH)
Figure 5: Effect of adsorbent dose of adsorbent microwaved sludge on the removal of 2,4 DNP (experimental condition; optimal pH, optimal concentration and optimal time)
Adsorption kinetics
Due to the mass transfer process and physicochemical properties of adsorption, kinetic studies are used to evaluate the adsorption performance. Given most kinetics models for adsorption are pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order models 25, 26, The formula for the pseudo-first-order relation is as follows 27, 28:
The adsorption rates of 2,4-DNP per every gram of adsorbent at the equilibrium time and t time were indicated by qe and qt. K1 is the first-order kinetics constant (1/min) and determined from the plot of log (qe - qt) versus t. The pseudo-second-order relation formula, which is based on the adsorption capacity in the solid phase, can also be used for adsorption kinetics 1, 29:
In the above equation, the plot t/q versus t indicates a linear relationship.
Determination of K2 and qe is done by the intersection point and slope of the diagrams. The kinetics constant is the same as K2. Also the intracellular diffusion model (IDP) is used to express the adsorption kinetics whose mathematical expression is as follows 30:
In this equation, C and Kdif represent the diffusion constant (mg g-1) and the intraparticular diffusion rate constant (mg g-1), respectively. Also in this study, non-linear shapes of these kinetics models (Equation 6 and 7) were used.
(6) |
q = qe |