phosphate removal from aqueous solutions using polyaniline/ ni0.5zn0.5fe2o4 magnetic nanocomposite

background: phosphorus is an indispensable element for the growth of animals and plants. there are several environmental problems related to phosphate; therefore, the technical and economic methods of removing phosphate are of great importance. this study evaluated the efficiency of polyaniline/ni0.5zn0.5fe2o4 magnetic nanocomposite in removing phosphate from aqueous environments. methods: the adsorbent was characterized by several methods, including x-ray diffraction (xrd), scanning electron microscopy (sem), vibrating sample magnetometer (vsm), and fourier transform infrared (ft-ir) spectroscopy. then, the potential of the adsorbentto adsorb phosphate was investigated. the effects of the parameters of contact time (5-60 minutes), ph (3-9), adsorbent dosage (0.05-0.6 g), and initial phosphate concentration (2-100 mg/l) on the phosphate removal yield were studied. all phosphate ion concentrations were measured using the ammonium molybdate spectrophotometric method. results: the results showed that a time of 30 minutes, ph of 5, and adsorbent dose of 0.4 g were the optimum conditions for phosphate removal through adsorption. increasing the initial concentration of phosphate from 2 to 100 mg/l decreased the removal efficiency from 90.3% to 32%. the experimental data was fitted well with the freundlich isotherm model (r2 = 0.997). conclusion: polyaniline/ni0.5zn0.5fe2o4 magnetic nanocomposite removes phosphate from aqueous solutions with a simple and environmentally benign procedure. the maximum adsorption capacity based on langmuir isotherm (r2 = 0.931) is 85.4 mg/g. this magnetic nanocomposite is applicable in managing water resource pollution caused by phosphate ions.