The aim of this study was to investigate the adsorption of bacteriophage MS2 by magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles in aqueous solutions. The characteristics of synthetic nanoparticles were analyzed using various techniques. The adsorption of MS2 to the nanoparticles was examined under various conditions using batch experiments. The results showed that the nanoparticles were mainly composed of maghemite along with goethite. The nanoparticles had a specific surface area of 82.2 m(2) g(-1), with an average pore diameter of 13.2 nm and total pore volume of 0.2703 cm(3) g(-1). The results demonstrated that the removal of MS2 by the nanoparticles was very fast. A 3.15 log removal (99.93%) was achieved within 60 min (adsorbent dose = 2 g L(-1); MS2 concentration = 2.94 × 10(6) pfu mL(-1)). The log removal decreased from 3.52 to 0.36 with increasing MS2 concentration from 1.59 × 10(4) to 5.01 × 10(7) pfu mL(-1). Also, the effect of solution pH on MS2 removal was minimal at pH 4.2-8.4. The removal of MS2 decreased in the presence of anions such as carbonate and phosphate, with the latter showing a greater hindrance effect on removal. This study demonstrated that magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles are very effective in the removal of MS2 from aqueous solutions.
Keywords: Bacteriophage MS2; magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles; sorption; virus removal.