Abstract

Rooftop harvested rainwater is an alternative source of drinking water. But researches from various parts\nof the world show that roof harvested rainwater is heavily contaminated especially with microorganisms and heavy\nmetals. Iron oxide based nanoparticle is an attractive media for removal of heavy metals contamination from water. But\ndue to practical difficulties they must be coated onto suitable supports like sand, polyurethane, etc. Previous study shows\nthat the iron content in the iron oxide nanoparticle coated sand synthesized using biological methods employing chitosan\ntemplates was less, thus affecting the performance efficiency in removing heavy metals. Thus the present study focuses\non the effect of two parameters, the temperature during coating and contact time of coating which affect the properties of\nsynthesized iron oxide nanoparticle coated sand thereby improving their performance in the removal of two heavy metals\nnamely lead and cadmium from rooftop harvested rainwater. The optimum removal of lead and cadmium occurs at\n5000C temperature and 60 minutes of contact time and the corresponding percentage removal was 82.66 and 74.74\nrespectively. An enhanced removal of 12.66% for lead and 24.74% for cadmium was also observed with respect to\nprevious study where the above factors not optimized. Thus the study showed the significance influence of the above\nparameters on the properties of the synthesized media and their performance in removing heavy metals.