Submit to Materials Review for Materials Propose a Special Issue

Journal Menu

Journal Browser

► Journal Browser

Advanced Materials for Water Remediation

Print Special Issue Flyer
Special Issue Editors
Special Issue Information
Keywords
Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue
Published Papers

A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Materials Chemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 September 2023) | Viewed by 23582

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Gabriela Buema

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

National Institute of Research and Development for Technical Physics, 700050 Iasi, Romania
Interests: power plant ash in unmodified/modified forms; layered double hydroxides in unmodified/modified forms; magnetic composites; material characterization; wastewater treatment; adsorption; pollutants; isotherm, kinetics, and thermodynamic evaluation; waste recycling
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Daniel Gherca

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

SM-S National Institute of Research and Development for Technical Physics, Iasi, Romania
Interests: Magnetic Nanoparticles; Magnetic nanocomposites; Nanaostructured materials; Catalysis, Catalysts, Composite materials; Chemical synthesis; Amorphous materials; Combustion synthesis; Spin casting; Coprecipitation method; Magnetism; Surface science; Surface coatings; Surface functionalization; Nanoparticles functionalization and characterization; Chemical vapor deposition.

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Water is one of life's most valuable and necessary resources. The impurity of water by pollutants released from the diﬀerent industries have a critical threat to the environment and to human health. Chemical, biological, and physical methods are available for wastewater treatment. Nevertheless, each procedure has its own set of benefits and drawbacks. The adsorption process has long been pointed out as the most popular treatment recommended to remove the contaminants from an aqueous solution due to some obvious advantages, such as: lower production of secondary harmful substances and minimum energy requirement. An efficient and sustainable adsorption process depends on the type of adsorbent used.

In the actual scientific context it is underlined that detailed studies about implementing a cheap and highly efficient adsorbent to treat the water contaminated with different pollutants is an interesting challenge and have to be conducted. In this light, the proposed Special Issue of Materials entitled ‘’Advanced Materials for Water Remediation’’ will take into consideration all the papers discussing the synthesis, characterization, and application of materials for water remediation.

Dr. Gabriela Buema
Dr. Daniel Gherca
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Materials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Water remediation
Advanced materials
Wastewater treatment technologies
Removal of heavy metals, dyes and organic contaminants from water
Active Pharmaceutical Drugs Oxidation
Photocatalysis
Isotherm, kinetics, and thermodynamic evaluation
Adsorption mechanism
Regeneration study

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
e-Book format: Special Issues with more than 10 articles can be published as dedicated e-books, ensuring wide and rapid dissemination.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue polices can be found here.

Published Papers (10 papers)

Download All Papers

Order results

Result details

Show export options Show export options

Select all

Export citation of selected articles as:

Editorial

Jump to: Research

5 pages, 227 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

Special Issue “Advanced Materials for Water Remediation”

by Gabriela Buema, Oana-Georgiana Dragos-Pinzaru, Horia Chiriac, Nicoleta Lupu and Daniel Gherca

Materials 2022, 15(15), 5096; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma15155096 - 22 Jul 2022

Viewed by 1444

Abstract

“Advanced Materials for Water Remediation” is a Special Issue of Materials, which will take into consideration all the papers discussing the synthesis, characterization and application of advanced materials for water remediation [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Materials for Water Remediation)

Research

Jump to: Editorial

18 pages, 5931 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Evaluation of Effective Composite Biosorbents Based on Wood Sawdust and Natural Clay for Heavy Metals Removal from Water

by Roberta Del Sole, Alena A. Fogel, Vladimir A. Somin, Giuseppe Vasapollo and Lucia Mergola

Materials 2023, 16(15), 5322; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16155322 - 28 Jul 2023

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1313

Abstract

Bentonitic clay and wood sawdust are natural materials widely available in nature at low cost with high heavy metals sorption properties that, in this work, were combined to achieve an effective composite biosorbent with high sorption properties and enhanced mechanical stability. Pine, aspen, and birch wood sawdust, as well as different bentonite clays and different sawdust modification methods (H₃PO₄ or HCl) were used for preparing new composite biosorbents. A mixture of wood sawdust and bentonite in a ratio of 2:1 was used. All materials were characterized by using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and scanning electron microscope (SEM) methods and tested for Cu and Ni ions removal from water. The adsorption process for all composite biosorbents was well described from a pseudo-second order kinetic model (R² > 0.9999) with a very high initial adsorption rate of Cu and Ni ions and a maximum uptake recorded within 2 h. The results have shown that the adsorption capacity depends mainly on the kind of wood and the acid treatment of the wood that enhances the adsorption capacity. At a concentration of 50 mg/L, the biosorbent prepared using birch wood sawdust showed the worst performance, removing barely 30% of Cu and Ni ions, while aspen wood sawdust improved the adsorption of Cu (88.6%) and Ni (52.4%) ions. Finally, composite biosorbent with pine wood sawdust showed the best adsorption be haviour with an efficiency removal of 98.2 and 96.3% of Cu and Ni ions, respectively, making it a good candidate as an inexpensive and effective biosorbent for the removal of heavy metals. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Materials for Water Remediation)

► Show Figures

Graphical abstract

18 pages, 8073 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Manganese-Titanium Mixed Ion Sieves for the Selective Adsorption of Lithium Ions from an Artificial Salt Lake Brine

by Yaxuan Ding, Nguyen Thi Hong Nhung, Jiahao An, Hao Chen, Lianying Liao, Chunlin He, Xinpeng Wang and Toyohisa Fujita

Materials 2023, 16(11), 4190; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16114190 - 5 Jun 2023

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2508

Abstract

Lithium recovery is imperative to accommodate the increase in lithium demand. Salt lake brine contains a large amount of lithium and is one of the most important sources of lithium metal. In this study, Li₂CO₃, MnO₂, and TiO₂ particles were mixed, and the precursor of a manganese–titanium mixed ion sieve (M-T-LIS) was prepared by a high-temperature solid-phase method. M-T-LISs were obtained by DL-malic acid pickling. The adsorption experiment results noted single-layer chemical adsorption and maximum lithium adsorption of 32.32 mg/g. From the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller and scanning electron microscopy results, the M-T-LIS provided adsorption sites after DL-malic acid pickling. In addition, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared results showed the ion exchange mechanism of the M-T-LIS adsorption. From the results of the Li⁺ desorption experiment and recoverability experiment, DL-malic acid was used to desorb Li⁺ from the M-T-LIS with a desorption rate of more than 90%. During the fifth cycle, the Li⁺ adsorption capacity of the M-T-LIS was more than 20 mg/g (25.90 mg/g), and the recovery efficiency was higher than 80% (81.42%). According to the selectivity experiment, the M-T-LIS had good selectivity for Li⁺ (adsorption capacity of 25.85 mg/g in the artificial salt lake brine), which indicates its good application potential. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Materials for Water Remediation)

► Show Figures

Graphical abstract

16 pages, 5873 KiB

Open AccessArticle

CoFe₂O₄@HaP as Magnetic Heterostructures for Sustainable Wastewater Treatment

by Raluca-Ștefania Dănilă, Ioan Dumitru, Maria Ignat and Aurel Pui

Materials 2023, 16(7), 2594; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16072594 - 24 Mar 2023

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1598

Abstract

The aim of this study was to synthesize a CoFe₂O₄@HaP nanocomposite (HaP-Hydroxyapatite) through the coprecipitation method in aqueous solution, with the purpose of using it in adsorption processes for the removal of Congo Red dye from aqueous solutions. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) was used to characterize the synthesized material, identifying absorption bands specific to the functional groups of cobalt ferrite (Fe-O and Co-O at 603 and 472 cm⁻¹) and hydroxyapatite PO₄³⁻ at 1035, 962, 603 and 565 cm⁻¹. Powder X-ray diffraction confirmed the cubic spinel structure of cobalt ferrite (S.G Fd-3m) and the hexagonal structure of hydroxyapatite (S.G P63/m). The nanocomposite’s crystallite size was calculated to be 57.88 nm. Nitrogen adsorption/desorption isotherms and BET specific surface area measurements were used to monitor textural parameters, revealing an increase in specific BET surface area when cobalt ferrite nanoparticles (15 m²/g) were introduced into the hydroxyapatite heterostructure (34 m²/g). Magnetic properties were investigated by interpreting hysteresis curves in the ±10 kOe range, with the nanocomposite showing a saturation magnetization of 34.83 emu/g and a coercivity value of 0.03 kOe. The adsorption capacity of the CoFe₂O₄@HaP nanocomposite is up to 15.25 mg/g and the pseudo-second-order kinetic model (Type 1) fits the data with a high correlation coefficient of 0.9984, indicating that the chemical adsorption determines the rate-determining step of the process. The obtained nanocomposite is confirmed by the analyses, and the absorption measurements demonstrate that it can be utilized to degrade Congo Red dye. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Materials for Water Remediation)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

16 pages, 3124 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Green Synthesis of Iridium Nanoparticles from Winery Waste and Their Catalytic Effectiveness in Water Decontamination

by Lucia Mergola, Luigi Carbone, Tiziana Stomeo and Roberta Del Sole

Materials 2023, 16(5), 2060; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16052060 - 2 Mar 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1813

Abstract

An environmentally friendly procedure was adopted for the first time to prepare green iridium nanoparticles starting from grape marc extracts. Grape marcs, waste of Negramaro winery production, were subjected to aqueous thermal extraction at different temperatures (45, 65, 80, and 100 °C) and characterized in terms of total phenolic contents, reducing sugars, and antioxidant activity. The results obtained showed an important effect of temperature with higher amounts of polyphenols and reducing sugars and antioxidant activity in the extracts with the increase of temperature. All four extracts were used as starting materials to synthesize different iridium nanoparticles (Ir-NP1, Ir-NP2, Ir-NP3, and Ir-NP4) that were characterized by Uv-Vis spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and dynamic light scattering. TEM analysis revealed the presence of very small particles in all samples with sizes in the range of 3.0–4.5 nm with the presence of a second fraction of larger nanoparticles (7.5–17.0 nm) for Ir-NPs prepared with extracts obtained at higher temperatures (Ir-NP3 and Ir-NP4). Since the wastewater remediation of toxic organic contaminants on catalytic reduction has gained much attention, the application of the prepared Ir-NPs as catalysts towards the reduction of methylene blue (MB), chosen as the organic dye model, was evaluated. The efficient catalytic activity of Ir-NPs in the reduction of MB by NaBH₄ was demonstrated and Ir-NP2 was prepared using the extract obtained at 65 °C, showing the best catalytic performance, with a rate constant of 0.527 ± 0.012 min⁻¹ and MB reduction of 96.1% in just six min, with stability for over 10 months. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Materials for Water Remediation)

► Show Figures

Graphical abstract

17 pages, 2936 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Evaluation of the Environmental Performance of Adsorbent Materials Prepared from Agave Bagasse for Water Remediation: Solid Waste Management Proposal of the Tequila Industry

by Camila S. Gómez-Navarro, Walter M. Warren-Vega, Juan C. Serna-Carrizales, Ana I. Zárate-Guzmán, Raúl Ocampo-Pérez, Francisco Carrasco-Marín, Virginia H. Collins-Martínez, Joaquina Niembro-García and Luis A. Romero-Cano

Materials 2023, 16(1), 8; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16010008 - 20 Dec 2022

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3853

Abstract

In the present research work, the use of agro-industrial waste such as agave bagasse from the tequila industry was carried out. The agave bagasse was treated to obtain biosorbent and hydrochar materials. Direct Blue 86 was used as an adsorbate model to evaluate the performance of both materials. The adsorption studies showed an adsorption capacity of 6.49 mg g⁻¹ in static and 17.7 mg g⁻¹ in dynamic, associated with a physisorption process between functional groups of the material and the dye. The characterization of the biosorbent showed that the material was mainly composed of macroporous fibers with a surface area <5.0 m² g⁻¹. Elemental analysis showed a majority composition of C (57.19 wt%) and O (37.49 wt%). FTIR and XPS analyses showed that the material had C-O, C=O, -OH, O-C=O, and -NH₂ surface groups. RAMAN and TGA were used to evaluate the composition, being cellulose (40.94%), lignin (20.15%), and hemicellulose (3.35%). Finally, the life-cycle assessment at a laboratory scale showed that the proposed biosorbent presents a 17% reduction in several environmental aspects compared to hydrochar, showing promise as an eco-friendly and highly efficient method for the remediation of water contaminated with dye, as well as being a promising alternative for the responsible management of solid waste generated by the tequila industry. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Materials for Water Remediation)

► Show Figures

Graphical abstract

13 pages, 1923 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Adsorption Study of Continuous Heavy Metal Ions (Pb²⁺, Cd²⁺, Ni²⁺) Removal Using Cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) Pod Husks

by Candelaria Tejada-Tovar, Angel Villabona-Ortíz and Ángel González-Delgado

Materials 2022, 15(19), 6937; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma15196937 - 6 Oct 2022

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2762

Abstract

The serious toxicological effects of heavy metal ions in aquatic ecosystems have motivated the search for alternatives to reduce contamination of water sources from industrial wastewater. In this work, continuous adsorption of nickel, cadmium, and lead was assessed using a packed bed column filled with Cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) pod husks widely available in the northern region of Colombia. The physicochemical characterization of the agricultural biomass was performed to quantify its chemical composition by bromatological, FT-IR, and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). The breakthrough curves were constructed for all heavy metal ions with bed depth of 4 and 7.5 cm, taking aliquots at 10, 30, 60, 90, 120, 150, 180, 210, 240, and 270 min. Moreover, experimental data were fitted to adsorption models in continuous mode to predict adsorptive performance (Adams–Bohart, Thomas, and Yoon–Nelson). For the FT-IR analysis of biomass before and after adsorption, the most representative bands occur around 3200–3900 cm⁻¹ attributed to the presence of hydroxyl groups, showing the destruction of the peaks of lignocellulosic materials. The breakthrough curves revealed that for a 7.5 cm bed, adsorption performance reported the following order of promising results: Pb²⁺ > Ni²⁺ > Cd²⁺; while for a 4 cm bed, Pb²⁺ > Ni²⁺. The mechanism of adsorption of the evaluated metals onto cocoa pod husk was attributed to cationic exchange and microprecipitation due to the presence of Ca, K, and Si in the structure of the bio-adsorbent. Finally, the continuous adsorption was modeled under the mathematical expressions of Adams–Bohart, Thomas, and Yoon–Nelson reporting good fitting with correlation coefficient above 0.95. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Materials for Water Remediation)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

16 pages, 8772 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Preparation of {001}TiO₂/TiOF₂ via a One-Step Hydrothermal Method and Its Degradation Mechanism of Ammonia Nitrogen

by Jiaming Zhu, Zuohua Liu, Feiyun Yang, Dingbiao Long, Yue Jian and Shihua Pu

Materials 2022, 15(18), 6465; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma15186465 - 17 Sep 2022

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 1915

Abstract

{001}TiO₂/TiOF₂ photocatalytic composites with a high activity {001} crystal plane were prepared by one-step hydrothermal methods using butyl titanate as a titanium source and hydrofluoric acid as a fluorine source. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), raman spectroscopy, N₂ adsorption-desorption curve (BET), UV-Vis diffuse absorption spectroscopy (UV-Vis DRS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and fluorescence spectroscopy (PL) were used to evaluate the structure, morphology, specific surface area, optical properties, and photocarrier separation ability of {001}TiO₂/TiOF₂. Ammonia nitrogen was taken as the target pollutant, and the degradation performance of the catalyst was investigated. The results show that hydrofluoric acid improves the content of {001} crystal plane of TiO₂ with high activity; it also improves the specific surface area and dispersion of the composite material and adjusts the ratio of {001}TiO₂ to TiOF₂ in the composite material to enhance the absorption capacity of the composite material and reduce the band gap width of the composite material. The degradation rate of ammonia nitrogen by 100 mg F15 is 93.19% when the initial concentration of ammonia nitrogen is 100 mg/L and pH is 10. Throughout the reaction process, the {001}TiO₂/TiOF₂ composite produces superoxide anion radical (·O₂⁻) and hydroxyl radical (·OH) to oxidize NH₃·H₂O and generate N₂ accompanied by a small amount of NO₃⁻ and NO₂⁻. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Materials for Water Remediation)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

25 pages, 3703 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Water Desalination Using the Once-through Multi-Stage Flash Concept: Design and Modeling

by Qahtan Thabit, Abdallah Nassour and Michael Nelles

Materials 2022, 15(17), 6131; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma15176131 - 3 Sep 2022

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3360

Abstract

Thermal water desalination is one of the most important techniques to solve the water scarcity problem in many regions of the world. Out of around 7.8 billion people in the world, only about 6 billion of them have access to clean water; notably, climate change plays a major role in accelerating the evaporation rate of water from water bodies, which in turn increases the scarcity. Multi-stage flash, recognized to have a high rate of water production in comparison with other available technologies, accounts for 35% of water desalination facilities worldwide. This paper presents a detailed Excel model to evaluate the amount of energy required to drive 16 stages of multi-stage flash. This model aims to design and evaluate the amount of thermal energy required for such projects and optimize their performance by calibrating the governing parameters. Furthermore, the 16 stages were simulated via the Ebsilon 13.02 software package to match the results and evaluate the fulfillment of the plant requirements. The temperature drop of the brine stream was 2.34 °C/stage. The top brine temperature was 130 °C. The results show that 29.5 kg/s of superheated steam is required to desalinate 162 kg/s of 2500 kg/s influent mass flow of brine. The effect of water intake temperature was also examined by using Ebsilon. The performance ratio decreased from 5.49 to 2.66 when the water intake temperature decreased from 30 °C to 5 °C. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Materials for Water Remediation)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

11 pages, 2143 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Cement-Based Solidification/Stabilization as a Pathway for Encapsulating Palm Oil Residual Biomass Post Heavy Metal Adsorption

by Candelaria Tejada-Tovar, Angel Villabona-Ortíz and Ángel González-Delgado

Materials 2022, 15(15), 5226; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma15155226 - 28 Jul 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1453

Abstract

Heavy metal pollution is a serious issue currently affecting the environment and public health, which has been faced by applying several alternatives such as adsorption. In this work, the adsorption technique was employed to remove nickel and lead ions from an aqueous solution using palm oil residual biomass as a biosorbent. Desorption experiments were also conducted to evaluate the desorption capacity of this biomass over sorption–desorption cycles. The polluted biomass was used to prepare bricks (5 and 10% biomass content) to encapsulate heavy metal ions into the cement matrix. Both mechanical resistance and leaching testing were performed to determine the suitability of these bricks for construction applications. The experimental results revealed a good biosorbent dosage of 0.1 g/L. The highest desorption yields were calculated in 11 and 83.13% for nickel and lead, respectively. The compression resistance when 10% biomass was incorporated into the bricks was reported to be below the acceptable limit. Leaching testing suggested a successful immobilization of heavy metal ions onto the cement matrix. These results indicate that the application of this immobilization technique allows solving disposal problems of biomass loaded with heavy metal ions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Materials for Water Remediation)

► Show Figures

Journal Menu

Journal Browser

Advanced Materials for Water Remediation

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editors

Special Issue Information

Keywords

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

Published Papers (10 papers)

Editorial

Research

Further Information

Guidelines

MDPI Initiatives

Follow MDPI