Arab Journal of Nuclear Science and Applications, 94 (1 ), (10-20) 2016 10 Synthesis of Novel Composites and Their Potential Application for Removal of Metal Ions. S. I. Moussa, K.F. Allan* and R.R. Sheha Nuclear Chem. Dept., Hot Laboratory Center, Atomic Energy Authority, Cairo, Egypt Received: 2/2/2015 Accepted: 9/6/2015 ABSTRACT 1 Novel nickel hexacyanoferrate (II) magnetic nano-materials were synthesized using the co-precipitation method. The samples used in the removal of Cu(II) ions from aqueous solutions and characterized using different techniques such as; Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), thermo gravimetric analyses (TGA), deferential thermal analysis (DTA), x-ray powder diffraction (XRD), surface area (BET) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results of the investigated physicochemical characteristics indicated that the Ferrite @Ni hexacyanoferrate (NiHCNF) composite ( RK2 ) is crystalline, having surface area amounting to 86.26 m 2 g −1 . The sorption kinetics of Cu(II) indicated that the equilibrium state was attained within 5 hrs. Sorption of Cu(II) onto the magnetic resins achieved its maximum value of 70% at pH 6. The prepared samples may be considered as effective sorbents for the removal of Cu(II) from aqueous solutions. Key Words: Synthesis /Magnetic Composites / Cupper Removal / Adsorption. 1. INTRODUCTION A large quantity of copper is discharged annually to the ecosystems worldwide, causing a serious environmental problem, because copper is an important element of the hazardous heavy metals (1,2) . Copper is continuously released from many industrial activities such as, electroplating, metal finishing industries etc. Hence, restriction of copper emissions becomes an important task. Many conventional methods have been employed to remove copper ions from waste solutions, such as oxidation, reduction, precipitation, membrane filtration, ion exchange and adsorption (3) . Although the efficiency of most of these techniques are acceptable, the adsorption method is a promising one for removal of copper ions from wastewater due to its high efficiency and economy (4-6) . Nowadays, research efforts are directed to combine magnetic separation with adsorptive removal in purification processes (7-9) . Magnetic separation technology is an efficient, fast and economical method for environmental purification. In addition, magnetic materials were widely applied in many biological separations and environmental remediation processes (10-12) . Of these magnetic materials, iron ferrite (Fe 3 O 4 ) has the advantage to be used as a support in synthesis of sorbent composites because it can be easily manipulated by an external magnetic field (13) . Recently, several studies was carried out on surface modification of Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles to effectively applied in removal of different heavy metals (14-19) . Studies addressing the removal of Cu(II) from waste solutions includes the application of awide variety of inorganic sorbents. One of these studies reported a fast adsorption of Cu(II) from aqueous solutions at pH 2–5 using carboxymethylated chitosan covalently bonded on Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles (20) . Further, Hizal and Apak (21) studied the uptake of Cu(II) using kaolinite clayminerals in the presence of humic acid. The efficiency of Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles treated with Arabic gum to remove copper ions was also examined by Banerjee and Chen (14) . They suggested surface complexation as a possible 1 * Correspondence: e-mail: karamallan@yahoo.com