The Ability of Nanoparticles of Ceratophyllum Demersum L. to Remove Copper from an Aqueous Solution

Abstract

Recently, several techniques have been used to remove heavy metals from pollutant water. Nanotechnology is a novel method to remove heavy metals since this technology provides more advantages such as ease of preparation, low cost, no toxicity, and no side effects. Nanoparticles of the plant Ceratophyllum demersum L. was prepared to remove copper element (Cu) from the pollutant water. The samples were collected from the Al-Hilla river in Babil province, Iraq from December 2021 to May 2022. The plants were dried and then ground to nanoparticles at (317 nm). After that, three different weights of these nanoparticles (0.1, 0.01, and 0.001 g) were prepared and treated with copper at different concentrations (10, 20, and 30 ppm) separately. A spectrophotometer is used to measure the ability of the nanoparticles to remove the copper element from the aqueous solution. The results show a good performance for this method to remove copper metal. Also, the statistical analysis showed a significant difference between the elements at the probability level of p≤ 0.05 in most of the concentrations of copper used in the experiment and there was a clear discrepancy between the concentrations of copper elements removed with increasing the amount of nanoparticles. So, increasing the amount of nanoparticles of Ceratophyllum demersum L. will increase the percentage of removal of the copper metal as shown in detail in this paper.