Significantly enhanced dye removal performance of hollow tin oxide nanoparticles via carbon coating in dark environment and study of its mechanism.

Shuanglei Yang,Jun Pan,Hongbo Zhang,Mei Lei,Lanping Huang,Zhaohui Wu,Lingling Sun,Qingyong Tian,Wei Wu,Banghong Zhou

doi:10.1186/1556-276x-9-442

Abstract

Understanding the correlation between physicochemical properties and morphology of nanostructures is a prerequisite for widespread applications of nanomaterials in environmental application areas. Herein, we illustrated that the uniform-sized SnO2@C hollow nanoparticles were large-scale synthesized by a facile hydrothermal method. The size of the core-shell hollow nanoparticles was about 56 nm, and the shell was composed of a solid carbon layer with a thickness of 2 ~ 3 nm. The resulting products were characterized in terms of morphology, composition, and surface property by various analytical techniques. Moreover, the SnO2@C hollow nanoparticles are shown to be effective adsorbents for removing four different dyes from aqueous solutions, which is superior to the pure hollow SnO2 nanoparticles and commercial SnO2. The enhanced mechanism has also been discussed, which can be attributed to the high specific surface areas after carbon coating.

Highlights

With the development of society and scientific technology, more attentions have been paid to environmental issues which were caused by the discharge of wastewater
The results reveal that the as-prepared hollow SnO2 nanoparticles (SnO2@C) nanoparticles exhibit excellent removal performance for rhodamine B (RhB) dyes
In summary, hollow SnO2@C nanoparticles have been synthesized on a large scale through a facile hydrothermal method

Summary

Background

With the development of society and scientific technology, more attentions have been paid to environmental issues which were caused by the discharge of wastewater. Zhu and co-workers have prepared hierarchical NiO spheres with a high specific area of 222 m2/g as an adsorbent for removal of Congo red [8]. The As(V) removal capacity of as-obtained γ-Fe2O3 is maintained at 74% and reaches 101.4 mg/g [9] They have prepared magnetic Fe2O3 chestnut-like amorphous-core/γ-phaseshell hierarchical nanostructures with a high specific area of 143.12 m2/g and with a maximum adsorption capacity of 137.5 mg/g for As(V) adsorption treatment [10]. Design and fabrication of materials like carbon-coated hollow structure would increase the dye removal abilities. The carbon layer increases the specific area of bare hollow SnO2 nanoparticles, which exhibits an enhanced dye removal performance

Methods

Findings

Conclusions