Hydrophilic graphitic carbon nitride-supported Cu-CNFs: An efficient adsorbent for aqueous cationic dye molecules

Abstract

The current study describes the synthesis of chemical vapor deposition (CVD)-grown carbon nanofibers (CNFs) over the graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) used as the substrate, and copper (Cu) as the CVD catalyst. The synthesized thermally treated Cu-CNFs/g-C3N4 composite shows a porous and hydrophilic characteristics, and is successfully used as an efficient adsorbent for aqueous methylene blue (MB). The high adsorption capacity (165 mg g−1) of MB over Cu-CNFs/g-C3N4-HT is attributed to the combined effects of the negatively electrostatic surface charge, hydrophilic characteristics, and a high BET surface area (162 m2g−1) of the material. The data clearly indicate the synthesized material in this study to be an efficient adsorbent for the removal of cationic molecules from wastewater.