Abstract
Biomass-derived carbon-attapulgite adsorbent was developed for organic pollutants removal. All the batch assays were performed to evaluate the effects of organic components, contact time, and initial concentration of organic pollutants on the adsorption performance of the as-prepared adsorbent. The samples were characterized via Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), X-ray diffractometer (XRD), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results demonstrated that the acid-treated carbon-attapulgite adsorbent (H-ATP/BC) showed a large specific surface area (237 m2 g−1) and possessed abundant oxygen-containing functional groups and silicon-oxygen bonds (i.e., O-Si-O and O-Si), which provided more active sites and conduced to the adhesive of organic pollutants. Both physical adsorption and chemical adsorption were involved in the adsorption process, and competitive adsorption occurred when two or more target pollutants coexist. Especially, phenol and/or aniline with an aromatic ring were much more likely to adhere to the H-ATP/BC surface than pyridine, and the selectivity order of H-ATP/BC for these pollutants was phenol > aniline > pyridine. From the model fitting, it was observed that the adsorption data could be described well by a pseudo-second-order model and Freundlich isotherms. The theoretical maximum phenol, aniline, and pyridine adsorption capacities of the H-ATP/BC were 14.31 mg g−1, 15.21 mg g−1, and 20.74 mg g−1, respectively. Comparison among the commercial adsorbents price also illustrated that H-ATP/BC could be a promising material for efficient treatment of organic pollutants.
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Funding is acknowledged from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U1910214), the National Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province for Distinguished Young Scholars (BK20190015), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20181142), and the Open Project of Jiangsu Province Key Laboratory of Environmental Engineering (KF2017003). These funds provide financial and technical support for the implementation of this work.
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MFY: investigation, writing - original draft, writing - review and editing, visualization, formal analysis. SM: conceptualization, writing- review and editing, supervision, project administration, funding acquisition. CYY: methodology, writing - review and editing, data curation. WYX: investigation, visualization, writing - review and editing. SB and CQQ: data curation, writing - review and editing. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Meng, F., Song, M., Chen, Y. et al. Promoting adsorption of organic pollutants via tailoring surface physicochemical properties of biomass-derived carbon-attapulgite. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 11106–11118 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-10974-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-10974-y