Porous carbon nanospheres aerogel based molecularly imprinted polymer for efficient phenol adsorption and removal from wastewater

Abstract

By adopting porous carbon nanospheres gel (PCNS-gel) carrier, the corresponding 3D monolithic surface molecularly imprinted polymer adsorbent ([email protected]) possesses unique advantages of excellent stability and efficient renewability besides its outstanding selectivity towards target phenol molecules. Carrier PCNS-gel is fabricated through the hydrothermal reaction of glucose, borax, and polyvinyl alcohol mixture. Based on the PCNS-gel, the functional adsorbent [email protected] is obtained via surface molecular imprinting technology, with phenol as template molecule and methacrylic acid as functional monomer. Owing to the surface imprinted layer, [email protected] performances a good adsorption capacity of 64.02 mg g−1 towards phenol. In addition, [email protected] has good selectivity towards phenol in the quaternary mixture solution of phenol, hydroquinone, p-nitrophenol, and p-tert-butylphenol with relative selectivity factors of 3.04, 16.50, and 3.93, respectively. More importantly, thanks to the 3D monolithic PCNS-gel carrier, the [email protected] adsorbent exhibits exceptional separation and recovery efficiency as well as outstanding stability and durability. The adsorption capacity only decreases by 10% after 10 repeated adsorption–desorption cycles. The adsorption capacity of [email protected] towards phenol in alkaline wastewater with complex composition is 58.4 mg g−1. The prepared novel 3D monolithic [email protected] adsorbent shows a promising application prospect for the deep and selective adsorption removal of phenol from wastewater.