Synthesis and application of magnetized nanoparticles to remove lead from drinking water: Taguchi design of experiment

Contamination in drinking water from heavy metals like Pb2+ has severe effects on health. In this study, potato peel (PP) was used as the substrate and magnetic iron nanoparticles (MI) were deposited on PP using a co-precipitated method. Fourier transformation infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis confirmed the deposition of MI on PP. The L16 (4^4) method of Taguchi design of experiment (DOE) was used for the optimization of adsorption condition, i.e., at 6 pH, 10 min of contact time, and a dose of 15 g/L can give more than 90% removal efficiency of Pb2+ using PP-MI. Contour maps, Taguchi response analysis, and analysis of variance (ANOVA) suggested that pH has a dominant contribution in the removal of Pb2+. The adsorption process was favorable, spontaneous, and exothermic in nature and was followed by pseudo second order kinetics. A comparison of the sorption capacity of PP-MI for Pb2+ with literature values suggested that PP-MI has good potential for the removal of Pb2+. This article has been made Open Access thanks to the generous support of a global network of libraries as part of the Knowledge Unlatched Select initiative.