Spent carbon cathode (SCC) is a hazardous waste from the aluminum electrolysis industry. It is commonly used as a carbon source in the current disposal and recovery strategies, such as combustion, or as a reductant for smelting. The novelty of this study is to propose a strategy for recycling SCC as a graphite resource and to investigate the unique structural characteristics and adsorption properties of graphene oxide produced from this low temperature graphitized carbon. The adsorption kinetics and isotherms of SCC-GO on methylene blue (MB) were studied and compared with the GO prepared from natural flake graphite (NFG) and artificial graphite (AG). The results show that SCC-GO exhibits the highest adsorption rate and adsorption capacity (647.83 mg/g) for MB, which is much higher than NFG-GO (451.22 mg/g) and AG-GO (533.12 mg/g). The analysis of the spectroscopy and morphology confirmed that SCC-GO has a high degree of crystal defects, oxidation, and surface wrinkle. Overall, this study reveals the unique structure of SCC-GO and highlights its significant scientific and application potential as an ultra-low temperature graphitized carbon. This research is also significant for recycling aluminum electrolytic cathode solid waste in the form of a graphite source.
Keywords: Adsorption capacity; Graphene oxide; Low temperature graphitization; Resource recycling; Spent carbon cathode.
© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.