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Abstract

Research & Development in Material Science

Phosphate & Nitrate Removal from Agricultural Runoff by Chitosan-Graphite Composite

  • Open or Close Rajendra S Dongre*

    Department of Chemistry, RTM Nagpur University, India

    *Corresponding author: Rajendra S Dongre, Department of Chemistry, RTM Nagpur University, Nagpur-440033, India

Submission: April 25, 2018;Published: May 15, 2018

DOI: 10.31031/RDMS.2018.06.000637

ISSN: 2576-8840
Volume6 Issue3

Abstract

Agriculture hugely used varied synthetic fertilizer/pesticide as nutrients and during periods of rain, these unused nutrients percolate from fertilized soils into the water-streams/rivers. Oozing excessive nutrients, mostly phosphorus and nitrogen causes water pollution and eutrophication, thus detrimental to ecosystem. This research synthesized benign bio-composite from naturally abundant chitosan by doping with graphite and SiO2 to remove nitrate/phosphates contamination from agricultural runoff/drainage percolating through water in batch adsorption mode. At lower concentrations (10-25mg/L), while at higher concentrations (up to 100mg/L), removal efficiency decreased, highest removal (70%) at 25-mg/L nitrate, while at higher concentrations (50 and 100mg/L), nitrate removal 36.7 and 42.9%,. 50% mix showed best performance in terms of both rates and percentage of removal for most of nitrate investigated indicating that a higher amount of in mixes improves adsorption capacity. Both Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models applied to experimental data and Langmuir described better nitrate removal process. Accordingly, graphite doped chitosan composite is benign alternative to the commercial adsorbents to reduce the cost of water treatment with enhanced nitrate/phosphate removal capacity. The saturated adsorbents after adsorption of nitrate was eluted with 0.1N NaOH solutions for desorption and resultant effluents were collected at regular time intervals and analyzed for residual nitrate ion chromatogram.

Keywords: Nitrate; Phosphate; Nutrient removal; Benign; Bio-composite; Chitosan; Water

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