Stabilizing of poly(amidoamine) dendrimer on the surface of sand for the removal of nonylphenol from water: Batch and column studies

In this work, a novel adsorbent with stabilizing of PAMAM dendrimer on the surface of sand was successfully synthesized and used to remove NP from water. The characterization of the adsorbent was performed by XRD, FTIR, TEM, and FE-SEM. Batch and column studies were conducted to evaluate the performance of the adsorbent. It was found that Freundlich isotherm and pseudo-second order models are perfectly stimulated the adsorption behavior and kinetic rate of NP uptake. In column study, first the effect of bed depth, flow rate and initial concentration of NP on the performance of the adsorbent were evaluated then the breakthrough curve for each condition was drawn. Finally, Thomas model constants to describe NP adsorption were calculated. As the result of the experiments, it might be concluded that in conventional water treatment plants which the removal of NP is negligible, the use of synthesized adsorbent as a filter media can be a promising way to selectively remove NP from water.