Polyacrylate stabilized ZVI/Cu bimetallic nanoparticles for removal of hexavalent chromium from wastewater

In this work, a magnetic core–shell composite zero-valent iron/copper-polyacrylate (ZVI/Cu-PAA) was synthesized by a simple liquid-phase reduction process and used for hexavalent chromium Cr(VI) removal from wastewater. The optimization experiments show that the optimal dosages of polyacrylate and Cu are 7.00 wt% and 8.25 wt%, respectively. The maximum adsorption capacity and removal rate of Cr(VI) by ZVI/Cu-PAA reached 106.12 mg g −1 and 99.05% at pH 5.5, respectively. Furthermore, the presence of coexisting ions such as Ca 2+ , Mg 2+ , Na + , and NO 3 − had no significant effect on its Cr(VI) removal performance. The excellent performance of ZVI/Cu-PAA is attributed to that the modification of polyacrylate can not only give more active sites but also inhibit agglomeration of nano-metallic particles, while Cu doping promotes the electron generation and transformation of Fe(III)/Fe(II) and Cu(II)/Cu(I) redox cycles. This makes ZVI/Cu-PAA has rich active sites and excellent stability, and has broad application prospects in the remediation of Cr (VI) polluted wastewater. Graphical abstract The magnetic core-shell composite ZVI/Cu-PAA has excellent Cr (VI) removal performance because of its rich active sites and high electron transformation efficiency.