Abstract

Development of carbonaceous materials from biomass have attracted tremendous research interest because of their intriguing physicochemical properties and promising applications. However, endowing them with precisely controlled morphologies remains a formidable challenge. Herein, oxygen-functionalized biomass-derived carbon-nanosheets (CNSs) framework was synthesized using ball-milling ultrasonic exfoliation for their application to remove cadmium Cd(II) from water matrices. The obtained CNSs showed remarkably higher surface area (368.9 m2/g), thickness-range (∼6–8 nm) and pore size (10.58 nm) than pristine carbon (PC) (10.126 m2/g, 1–2 µm and 2.13 nm, respectively). CNSs demonstrated higher adsorption capacity (545.76 mg g−1), superior reusability (removal efficiency maintained >91 % after 10 cycles) and excellent selectivity (Kd = 4.7 × 106 mL g−1). The adsorption isotherm and kinetics data were better fitted by Langmuir and pseudo-second order models. High adsorption selectivity of CNSs led to 97.7 % Cd(II) adsorption in presence of Cu(II), Zn(II), Pb(II) and Ni(II) ions. The strong efficiency of CNSs was also evident in complex water matrices including tap water, groundwater (Cd(II) removal of >99 %) and river water (98.97 %). The experimental analyses indicate that electrostatic attraction and surface complexation as the prominent adsorption mechanisms. Overall, this work illustrates an applicable strategy to develop carbon-nanosheets and their successful application to remove toxic metals from water matrices.

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