Abstract
The removal of Congo red (CR) and heavy metal ion nickel (Ni(II)) from wastewater is a critical concern for safeguarding the aquatic environment and promoting sustainable development. Herein, a novel citric acid steam-assisted decomposition method is applied to form meso-macroporous magnesium oxide (MgO) with rich oxygen defects. As the gelation process of xerogel precursor could be significantly promoted by the steam-assisted process with citric acid solution as steam source, the morphology structure of MgO changes into loose aggregates with sharp edges and is covered by a layer of MgO nanoparticles. The synthesized MgO, with a high surface area (103.60 m2 g−1), meso-macroporous structure and abundant oxygen defects, exhibits super adsorption capacities for CR (7109.85 mg g−1) and Ni(II) (1405.88 mg g−1). The MgO (0.4 g L−1) could completely remove CR (200 mg L−1) in 30 min, while 10 min for Ni(II) (200 mg L−1) adsorption. The adsorption mechanism of MgO for CR and Ni(II), including electrostatic interaction, oxygen vacancy capture, hydrogen bonding and ion exchange, is effectively enhanced due to the appearance of meso-macroporous structure and oxide defects, such as 5-coordinated oxygen anion (O5C2−) for terrace, 4-coordinated oxygen anion (O4C2−) for edge and 3-coordinated oxygen anion (O3C2−) for corner. The easy calcination is applied to recycle MgO after CR adsorption and the CR removal efficiencies are above 98 % after five cycles. Meanwhile, a nickel chelator (Na2EDTA) and calcination are used to regenerate the MgO after Ni(II) adsorption and the adsorbent shows an insignificant removal efficiency loss after three cycles. The meso-macroporous MgO with rich oxygen defects has the characteristics of high adsorption speed, high adsorption capacity and convenient recovery property, and is expected to become an ideal material for the rapid treatment of high concentration wastewater.
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