Facile Synthesis of Silver Bromide-Based Nanomaterials and Their Efficient and Rapid Selective Adsorption Mechanisms Toward Anionic Dyes

Abstract

A novel adsorbent of AgBr–AgBr/CTAB nanomaterials, which was synthesized via Tollen’s reagent with the aid of hexadecyltrimethy ammonium bromide (CTAB), showed an excellent high affinity to anions and was used for removal of organic dyes in aqueous solutions. The synthesized AgBr–AgBr/CTAB was thoroughly characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, XPS, FTIR, TGA, DLS as well as zeta potential measurements. The adsorption property and capacity of AgBr–AgBr/CTAB for organic dyes were evaluated using methylene blue (MB), rhodamine B (RhB), acid red 18 (AR-18), orange G (OG), indigo carmine (IC), and methyl orange (MO) as models. The adsorption capacity of AgBr–AgBr/CTAB complex toward four anionic dyes OG, AR-18, IC, and MO solutions was 87.43 ± 2.03 mg g–1, 205.89 ± 2.12 mg g–1, 140.42 ± 2.13 mg g–1, and 104.6 ± 1.59 mg g–1, respectively. On the other hand, this adsorbent exhibited little adsorption ability toward two cationic dyes, MB (2.99 ± 0.40 mg g–1) and RhB (2.96 ± 0.60 mg g–1). Interestingly, AgBr–AgBr/CTAB cou...