Application of response surface methodology for optimization of fluoride adsorption from aqueous solution using MgO-based nanocomposites

Deleterious effect of high concentration fluoride in water resources on the health of human. The MgO supported Fe-Co-Mn nanoparticles were produced via coprecipitation method and characterized by SEM and FTIR techniques. In the work, the adsorption process optimization was performed by response surface modeling with the help of Minitab 16 software. The effect of independent parameters such as pH ( 3-11), the initial dose (0.02-0.1 g/L), the initial concentration of the fluoride (10-50 mg/L) and reaction time (30-180 min) were optimized to obtain the best response of fluoride removal using the statistical Box-Behnken in response surface modeling procedure. Conditions for the pH(5), the initial concentration of nanoparticle (0.05 g/L), the initial concentration of fluoride (50 mg/L) and the process time(90 min) were obtained as Min respectively. Under these conditions, the removal efficiency of the fluoride by MgO capped Fe-Co-Mn nanoparticles equal to 84.64% were achieved. ANONA high correlation coefficients for the proposed model was also obtained (adjusted –R2=0.9993 and R2=0.9984). The equilibrium data were analyzed using Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin and Dubinin- Radushkevich isotherm models. The Langmuir model was found to be describing the data. Kinetic studies showed that the adsorption followed a pseudo-second