Abstract
This article deals with the removal of cobalt ions using zinc oxide nanopowder. The nanomaterial was prepared via the sol–gel method under supercritical drying. The nanomaterial was characterised via XRD, SEM, EDX, FTIR, and BET surface area techniques. The kinetics, equilibrium, and thermodynamic studies of the metal ions adsorption on the nanomaterial were conducted in batch mode experiments by varying some parameters such as pH, contact time, initial ion concentrations, nanoparticles dose, and temperature. The data revealed significant dependence of the adsorption process on concentration, and the temperature was found to enhance the adsorption rate indicating an endothermic nature of the adsorption. The adsorption complied well with the pseudo-second-order kinetics model. The adsorption process was found to match the Langmuir adsorption isotherm. The ZnO nanoparticles could successfully remove up to 125 mg·g
of Co(II) ions at elevated temperature. The metal ions adsorption could be described as an endothermic, spontaneous physisorption process. A mechanism for the metal ions adsorption was proposed.