فرهاد رحمانی چیانه

Background and Objective: Hexavalent chromium due to high toxicity and non-biodegradability regarded as extremely serious threat, especially for the human health. In the present study the performance of ZnO/clinoptilolite nanocomposite for Cr (VI) removal was investigated. Materials and Methods: ZnO/clinoptilolite nanocomposite was successfully synthesized by impregnation method. Various techniques were applied for the nanocomposite characterization, including XRD, FESEM, BET and TEM. Also, effects of diverse key operating parameters such as: reaction time, pH value, initial Cr (VI) concentration and nanocomposite dosage on the removal rate were studied. Results: The XRD pattern confirmed that nanocomposite were properly formed and had a crystalline structure. TEM and FESEM images illustrated a good distribution of ZnO onto zeolite surface in nanometric size. The specific surface area of nanocomposite was estimated to be 88.45 (m2/g) which was greater than ZnO (16 m2/g) alone. The results demonstrated, the high rate of removal reached 99.3% at the initial Cr (VI) concentration of 5 mg-1, pH=3 and reaction time= 80 min. Conclusions: According to the results, ZnO/clinoptilolite nanocomposite can be used as a convenient photocatalyst to reduce the level of Cr (VI) from the aqueous solution in contaminated resources.