Abstract
Treating water containing hazardous toxins by using a simple and inexpensive method is essential for human healthcare and environment. Here, the highly efficient removal of arsenic, lead, iron and aluminum pollutants (>99.5%) from water were evaluated through batch and filter-like fixed column designs by using microscopic titanium oxide and oxyfluoride captors, to produce toxin-free water for human use. The captors/adsorbents were fabricated within new different hierarchical structures, such as banana clusters, dice cubes, tower sheets, and round wickers. These hierarchical structures of adsorbents offer multi-directional trapping of targeted toxins during the continuous columnar-flow process as (i) axial tunneling, (ii) zigzag cave, (iii) layer-like sandwich, and (iv) spiral squirrel wicker binding orientations. The experimental finding showed high adsorption capacity of TiO2-banana cluster toward arsenic, lead, iron and aluminum ions into its captive pores as 124, 216, 150 and 146 mg/g at pH 2, 4, 4 and 6, respectively. Moreover, most of the heavy metals were completely adsorbed from water (>99%) at pH >= 7. The provided findings indicated that the batch and columnar-adsorption designs maintained their functionality to effectively remove toxins even after multiple reuse/cycles, where the spent TiO2-banana cluster can be regenerated using NaOH and HCIO4. The real toxin removal from the lake and tap water using TiO2-banana cluster adsorbent was assessed through the both proposed protocols (batch and column) under optimum pH conditions. In general, this study provides an applied-expandable and low-cost process for decontaminating water sources. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.