Soft Template Assisted Synthesis of Zirconium Resorcinol Phosphate Nanocomposite Material for the Uptake of Heavy-Metal Ions

Herein, we report the low temperature, template directed synthesis of zirconium resorcinol phosphate (ZrRP) nanocomposite material, within water-in-oil microemulsion with Tergitol-7 as a surfactant. The material was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), simultaneous thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential thermal analysis (DTG), energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDX), and specific area electron diffraction (SAED) studies. The powder X-ray diffraction studies revealed that the material is amorphous in nature with hardly developed crystallinity. SEM and TEM micrography studies showed that the ZrRP nanocomposite has nearly spherical morphology with average particle size of 30–40 nm. Viscoelastic behavior of ZrRP gel confirms its non-Newtonian behavior which is indicative of monodisperse nature of ZrRP nanoparticles. ZrRP possesses high ion exchange capacity of 2.9 mequiv g –1 for Sr 2+ ion and can have potential application in radionuclide recovery from nuclear wastes. Distribution coefficients are high for Cd 2+ ion (1.3 × 10 4 mL g –1 ) and Ni 2+ ion (6.1 × 10 3 mL g –1 ) in 0.01 M perchloric acid medium. High distribution coefficient value of ZrRP toward Cd 2+ ions was used for its quantitative separation from Zn 2+ and Ni 2+ ions.