F Aryanasab - Faculty of Chemistry and Petrochemical Engineering, Department of Petrochemical Engineering, Standard ResearchInstitute
A.R Banazadeh - Faculty of Chemistry and Petrochemical Engineering, Department of Petrochemical Engineering, Standard ResearchInstitute

The present study shows that the magnetic nanoparticles coated with dithiocarbamate-modified starch(DTCS-MNP) is a commercially promising adsorbent for the removal of Hg(II) and Pb(II) from aqueous solutions priorto their determination by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES).The prepared magnetic adsorbent was characterized by infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD),transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA). TEM images indicated thatdithiocarbamate-modified starch was immobilized on the surface of magnetic nanoparticles successfully, andconglobation was not observed. The XRD pictures suggested that the Fe3O4 nanoparticles were pure Fe3O4 with aspherical structure and that the immobilizing process did not result in the phase change of Fe3O4. Batch adsorptionexperiments were carried out as a function of pH, adsorption time and the amount of adsorbent . The optimum pH forHg(II) and Pb(II) absorptions were 5.5 and 5 respectively. The adsorbent can be regenerated from the heavy metalsloaded sorbent in a weak acidic solution.

dithiocarbamate-modified starch; magnetic nanoparticles; heavy metals adsorption