Synthesis of Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticles for Removal of Pb²⁺, Cd²⁺ and Cr³⁺ from Wastewater

Water pollution is widely regarded as one of the most pressing global challenges, exacerbated by human progress in industrial, agricultural, and technological sectors. Wastewater often contains non-biodegradable heavy metals that accumulate in living organisms. This accumulation poses significant risks to both environmental ecosystems and human health. The structures and surface morphology were characterized by FTIR, UV-vis measurements, XRD, SEM, and AFM. TiO2 nanoparticles could remove heavy metal ions (Pb2+, Cd2+, and Cr3+) from two samples (laboratory samples and real samples from Babylon battery factory in Al-Waziriya, Baghdad/Iraq) and measured by AAS. The results indicated that the removal percentages of heavy metal ions by TiO2 nanoparticles from real sample ions were 91.32, 64.28 and 58.33% for Pb2+, Cd2+, and Cr3+, respectively. The optimum conditions for removal were 0.1 g of TiO2 nanoparticles, 10 ppm concentration of the pollutant ions, 75 min stirring time, a 100-rpm stirring rate, and a pH level of 7. The kinetic data were related to the pseudo-second-order (R2 = 0.9455), and the isotherm models were related to the Langmuir equation (R2 = 0.9769).