Donga CabanganiAjay Kumar MishraShivani Bhardwaj Mishra2026-05-252026-05-252025Donga, C., Mishra, S.B., Abd-El-Aziz, A.S., Kuvarega, A.T., Mbule, P. and Mishra, A.K., 2025. Diethylene triamine penta (methylene phosphonic acid) functionalized magnetic nanosilica for adsorptive removal of heavy metals (Pb2+ and Ni2+) from aqueous solution. Journal of Molecular Liquids, 426, p.127468.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molliq.2025.127468https://hdl.handle.net/10566/22889Magnetic nanosilica nanoparticles are used for the remediation of wastewater. In this study, a robust nanoadsorbent material was fabricated by functionalising magnetic nanosilica with diethylene tria magnetic nano-adsorbent material was characterised by various techniques such as FT-IR, XRD, SAXS, FESEM coupled with Thermo Scientific Ultra dry EDS detector, TEM, VSM, BET and Zeta potential measurements. VSM analysis showed enhanced magnetic separation ability for Fe3O4@SiO2-DTPMP as was shown by a saturation magnetisation of 24 emug􀀀 1, while EDS analysis gave spectra showing high purity of the synthesised nanocomposite. Batch adsorption experiments on the effects of pH, initial metal ion concentration, adsorbent dose, temperature, and contact time were conducted on the removal of metal ions from aqueous solution. The asprepared Fe3O4@SiO2-DTPMP nano-adsorbent was easily separated from aqueous solution using an external permanent magnet. The adsorption isotherm models follow the Langmuir model and pseudo-second-order kinetics. From the results of this study, Fe3O4@SiO2-DTPMP showed enhanced adsorption performance for the Pb2+ and Ni2+ after 60 min and 30 min, respectively. Metal ions removal reached 92 % for Pb2+ at pH 6 and 54 % for Ni2+ at pH 5, with Qemax of 13.28 and 8.56 mg g􀀀 1, respectively. The Fe3O4@SiO2-DTPMP nano-adsorbents were regenerated and reused without the leaching of core mineral contents for at least 5 cycles. Therefore, the results of the study showed the Fe3O4@SiO2-DTPMP nano-adsorbent as a promising adsorbent material for water/wastewater treatment.enNano-adsorbentMagneticAdsorptionPollutantsAgglomerationSuperparamagnetismArticle