LAUSR

Abstract Combination of nano-metal oxides (NMOs) with other granular materials of porous characteristics offer excellent and promising hybrid nanosorbents with the advantages of high efficient surface and hydraulic characteristics to break out the technical barriers for application in scaled-up water decontamination. Therefore, the present study is aimed to take advantage of activated carbon (AC) as granular-porous material with reactive functional groups to encapsulate in a sandwich between manganese oxide nanoparticles (MnO2-NPs) and tin oxide nanoparticles (MnO2-NPs) to produce a novel nanosorbent (SnO2-NPs-AC-MnO2-NPs). The characterization of this nanosorbent was evaluated using FT-IR, XRD, TGA, SEM and HR-TEM. The removal performance of lead (ІІ), cadmium (ІІ) and copper (ІІ) ions on SnO2-NPs-AC-MnO2-NPs was investigated and optimized by the batch adsorption technique and applying a number of controlling parameters as pH of contact solution, shaking time, nanosorbent dosage, ionic metal concentration and interfering species. The maximum metal up-take capacities were 4100, 2600 and 2500 μ mol g−1 for copper (ІІ), lead (ІІ) and cadmium (ІІ), respectively by applying concentration of Cu(II), Cd(II) and Pb(II) (0.2 mol L−1), time of reaction (30 min), pH 7 of reaction solution and mass of SnO2-NPs-AC-MnO2-NPs (5.0 mg). Several oxygenated functional groups, especially O-H, C-O, Mn-O, and SnO are suggested to take part in the adsorption with excellent affinity and superiority in removal of the target metal ions from wastewater. This study is aimed to confirm the capability of implementation SnO2-NPs-AC-MnO2-NPs as an excellent nanosorbent for decontamination of heavy metals from different water samples with percentage range (91.2–97.6%) Cu(II), (92.4–95.5%) Pb(II) and (92.9–99.1%) Cd(II).