Thermal modification was simply performed on molybdenite to enhance the adsorption of Pb(II) in aqueous solutions, and the root of this phenomenon was well studied in this work. Various thermal modification temperatures at 300 °C, 400 °C and 500 °C were applied to modify the surface property of molybdenite, producing different degrees of edge defect and surface wettability in molybdenite samples. Contact angle tests, atomic force microscopy (AFM) observations and adsorption tests illustrated that molybdenite thermally modified at 400 °C contained most edge defects and achieved a 147.846 mg/g Pb(II) adsorption, which was almost 10 times of that obtained by natural molybdenite. The adsorption experiment also indicated that the increase of surface hydrophilia of molybdenite would slightly benefit the Pb(II) adsorption. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscope (XPS) exhibited that a strong chemical adsorption existed between Pb(II) and S elements. AFM study further demonstrated that the interaction between Pb(II) and S atoms exposed at the triangular edges of molybdenite were the intrinsic reason for the great enhancement of Pb(II) adsorption. This work provides a new insight to absorb Pb(II) in aqueous solutions using natural molybdenite.
Keywords: Multi-edged molybdenite; Pb(II) adsorption; Sulfur vacancy; Thermal modification.
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