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Nanoparticle-nanofiber synergistic matrix for highly effective arsenic adsorption: material design and performance evaluation

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Abstract

Arsenic in groundwater poses serious health risks. Over the last decade, adhering to World Health Organization (WHO) directives, permissible arsenic levels in drinking water were reduced, requiring efficient, cost-effective, and user-friendly technologies. In this work, a hybrid nanocomposite membrane (HNM) with adsorbent mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSN) covalently linked to organic electrospun nanofibers was developed. MSN were synthesised and superficially modified in order to be physically and chemically effective for both the conformation of the HNM and the adsorption of arsenic(V). Materials were structurally characterised by N2 adsorption/desorption, SEM, TEM, TGA, FTIR and evaluated for As(V) removal in synthetic and real groundwater samples at pH 8. In synthetic solutions, HNM lowers arsenic below WHO limits in less than 60 min, showing very fast adsorption kinetic during the first 15 min. The adsorption mechanism adheres to a pseudo-second-order reaction, signifying the chemical bonding of As(V) to active sites. Also, Langmuir model aligns with the adsorption isotherm, indicating surface saturation with a monolayer of arsenate species. HNM sustains capacity (>94%) over five adsorption/desorption cycles, enhancing viability for reuse. When exposed to real contaminated water, HNM achieves more than 60% adsorption within 60 min and 90% surface regeneration, an outstanding result for the treatment of real environmental samples without prior treatments. Therefore, this hybrid nanocomposite membrane offers an effective and viable alternative for the removal of arsenate ions from contaminated water. These outcomes could forward the design of new treatment devices with an effective and environmentally acceptable technology for arsenic removal.

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Highlights

  • A new generation of reusable adsorbents is presented as an alternative to conventional technologies to remove arsenic from groundwater.

  • Hybrid nanocomposite membrane (HNM) is successfully conformed through a crosslinking process between mesoporous silica nanoparticles and electrospun polyacrylonitrile nanofibers.

  • The adsorbent exhibits high and fast adsorption capacity for arsenate ions over multiple cycles of use and regeneration.

  • Hybrid nanocomposite membranes (HNM) exhibit high adsorption efficiency in real arsenic-contaminated water matrices.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica (PICT 2019-0565), the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (PIBAA 2022-1004 and PIP 2022-0857) and Nanoremovas Project: H2020-MSCA-RISE-2014 [grant number 645024], “Advanced multifunctional nanostructured materials applied to remove arsenic in Argentinian groundwater”. The authors would like to thank Montserrat Resina Gallego for her valuable technical support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ciencia y Tecnología de Materiales (INTEMA, UNMdP-CONICET), B7608FDQ, Mar del Plata, Argentina

    Lucía Yohai & Sergio Pellice

  2. Functional Materials, SCI, KTH, Hannes Alfvéns väg 12, 11419, Stockholm, Sweden

    Abdusalam Uheida

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  1. Lucía Yohai
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  2. Abdusalam Uheida
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Contributions

LY: experimental work, writing—original draft, methodology, data curation. AU: methodology, supervision, writing—review. SP: experimental work, writing—original draft, methodology, supervision, writing—review.

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Correspondence to Sergio Pellice.

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Yohai, L., Uheida, A. & Pellice, S. Nanoparticle-nanofiber synergistic matrix for highly effective arsenic adsorption: material design and performance evaluation. J Sol-Gel Sci Technol 109, 385–399 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10971-023-06277-6

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