Introduction
Engineered nano-materials in the form of nano-metal oxides
have been designed for the purposes of heavy metals removal,
extraction and remediation from aqueous solutions. Such recent
interests are mainly related to their high surface area, efficient
adsorption capacity, incorporated selectivity, fast equilibration
time and excellent recovery values if compared to other bulk
materials [1,2].
Nano-magnetic iron oxide, nano-Fe3O4, is an example of the
widely used metal oxides. The implementation of magnetic nanoparticles,
as sorbents, for heavy metals has recently received high
attentions in environmental and chemical engineering fields in
order to solve the associated problems with the separation process
from contact medium. The high interests in magnetic nanomaterials
are mainly due to their simple isolation from the
medium by using an external magnetic field [3]. The free magnetic
nano-Fe3O4 is characterized by the presence of surface hydroxyl
groups which limit chemical and physical reactivities toward
interaction with other contacted species [4]. In addition, magnetic