Environmentally Friendly Synthesis of Polymer-Coated Magnetic Nanoparticles for oil remediation

Amjed Alabresm

Authors

Amjed Alabresm Department of Natural Marine Science, College of Marine Science, University of Basrah

Keywords:

Iron oxide, PVP, Nanoparticles, oil remediation

Abstract

Oil spills pose a serious threat not only to human communities but also to entire ecosystem. Current clean up techniques often have several limitations related to effectiveness, synthesis cost, environmental footprint, or real-filed application. Due to these limitations, nanotechnology could be used as a promising alternative technique for oil spill treatment. In this study, we modified method of synthesis polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP)-coated iron oxide nanoparticles with the focusing on improving commercial feasibility while maintaining high oil removal effectiveness. The modified synthesis employed sustainable and environmentally friendly conditions, including the use of less mass of nanoparticles, room temperature, and less hazardous reagents. Different techniques have been used to characterize synthesized nanoparticles such as transmission electron microscopy (TEM), dynamic light scattering (DLS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The results showed that the modified PVP-coated IONPs exhibited similar structural and physicochemical properties to previously engineered nanoparticles (core size and effective PVP coating). The results also demonstrated that the modified nanoparticles achieved excellent oil removal performance (95–100%) of oil components removal, including n-alkanes (C9–C25). This excellent oil removal percentage was obtained using only 5 mg L⁻¹ of nanoparticles compared with previous formulations. These findings showed that simple modifications in the synthesis could improve the practicality and economic feasibility of PVP-coated IONPs without compromising their oil remediation performance. The developed nanoparticles show significant potential as a scalable and sustainable technology for future oil spill response and treatment of oily marine wastewater.

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