High performance microwave-enforced solid phase extraction of heavy metals from aqueous solutions using magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles-protected-nanosilica

•A high performance microwave-enforced solid phase extraction of metal ions from their solution.•A novel extraction process with respect to the time of extraction.•A microwave-assisted surface protected Nano-Fe3O4@Nano-SiO2 sorbent.•High sorption capacity values were identified in few second.

A novel technique is presented to explore and investigate the solid phase extraction of heavy metal ions from aqueous solutions using a microwave-enforced sorption heating system. A microwave-assisted surface protected and coated nano-magnetic iron oxide with nano-silica layer [Nano-Fe3O4@Nano-SiO2] was used as the sorbent. The metal sorption characteristics of Nano-Fe3O4@Nano-SiO2 toward Pb(II), Cu(II), Cd(II) and Hg(II) were evaluated and the sorption capacity values were found as 1100, 300, 150 and 100 μmol g−1, respectively upon microwave heating for 5.0 s. These values were slightly changed to 1150, 500, 400 and 100 upon heating to 20.0 s, respectively.

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