Synthesis of ultra-large ZrO2 nanosheets as novel adsorbents for fast and efficient removal of As(III) from aqueous solutions

Khurram Shehzad; Mukhtar Ahmad; Junyong He; Tao Liu; Weihong Xu; Jinhuai Liu

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2018.08.079

Synthesis of ultra-large ZrO₂ nanosheets as novel adsorbents for fast and efficient removal of As(III) from aqueous solutions

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2019 Jan 1:533:588-597. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2018.08.079. Epub 2018 Aug 23.

Authors

Khurram Shehzad¹, Mukhtar Ahmad², Junyong He¹, Tao Liu¹, Weihong Xu³, Jinhuai Liu⁴

Affiliations

¹ Nanomaterials and Environmental Detection Laboratory, Institute of Intelligent Machines, Hefei Institute of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 230031, China; University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
² Nanomaterials and Environmental Detection Laboratory, Institute of Intelligent Machines, Hefei Institute of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 230031, China; Department of Physics, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Lahore, Pakistan.
³ Nanomaterials and Environmental Detection Laboratory, Institute of Intelligent Machines, Hefei Institute of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 230031, China. Electronic address: whxu@iim.ac.cn.
⁴ Nanomaterials and Environmental Detection Laboratory, Institute of Intelligent Machines, Hefei Institute of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 230031, China. Electronic address: jhliu@iim.ac.cn.

PMID: 30193145
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2018.08.079

Abstract

Consumption of water having excessive arsenic (As) contamination can cause adverse health effects on human beings. In this study, novel ultra-large zirconium oxide (ZrO₂) nanosheets were successfully synthesized using graphene oxide (GO) templates and their adsorption-ability was studied for arsenite (As(III)). Owing to higher values of surface area, numbers of available hydroxyl groups and strong chemisorption binding affinity towards As(III), the synthesized novel ultra-large ZrO₂ nanosheets showed high adsorption-ability for As(III) over a wide pH range. Experimental results demonstrated that the maximum adsorption-ability of the ZrO₂ nanosheets for As(III) reached to 74.9 mg/g at pH 6. BET, zeta potential, effect of initial pH, FTIR and XPS have been used to analyze the As(III) adsorption process on the ZrO₂ nanosheets. The experiments for effects of co-existing ions indicated that ZrO₂ nanosheets possessed good anti-interference ability towards co-existing ions. Furthermore, the ZrO₂ nanosheets demonstrated very fast and excellent treatment of simulated real As(III) polluted water, consequently the effluent concentration met the standard regulated by World Health Organization. This study suggested that the as-prepared ZrO₂ nanosheets could be potentially applied in practical drinking water treatment.

Keywords: Adsorption; Arsenite; Graphene oxide; Nanosheets; Zirconium oxide.