Multifunctional heteroatom doped sustainable carbon nanocomposite for rapid removal of persistent organic pollutant and iodine from water

Abstract

The development of a rapid and efficient strategy for removal of organic and inorganic pollutant in aqueous solution remain a challenge for protecting environment and human health. World is fascinated by the heteroatom doped carbon based multifunctional sorbent for the real-world applications in sustainable energy and environmental remediation due to its cost-effective, bio-inspired, simplicity of the process and good efficiency. Herein, we have demonstrated a novel economically and green method to synthesize boron and nitrogen doped fluffy carbon ([email protected]) from tapioca root, boric acid, and melamine via a simple dehydration method only concentrated H2SO4. The [email protected] nanostructure was successfully prepared within few minutes (~15 min) at room temperature without any additional energy treatment. The constitution and surface morphology of [email protected] were scrutinized by using different techniques. The photocatalytic activity and iodine capture capacity of as-synthesized material have been evaluated by the removal of methylene blue (MB), rhodamine B (RhB) and iodine (I2). [email protected] nanomaterial was able to remove MB, RhB and I2 up to ~ 99.75%, 97.86%, 94.56 %, whereas CS was able to remove ~ 72.44%, 68.62%, 71.30%, respectively, within 21 min from their initial concentration of 100 ppm solution of MB, RhB and 200 ppm solution of I2. The above outcome demonstrates that our [email protected] nanomaterial has outstanding photocatalytic activity and iodine capture ability as compared to only CS, [email protected] and [email protected] due to providing more active site and low recombination of photogenerated electrons and hole. The current study indicates new aspect for the synthesis of large-scale production of [email protected] in a very short time for different applications in sustainable chemistry, including the removal of organic pollutants and radioactive I2 from water resources.