In Situ Growth Synthesis of the CNTs@AC Hybrid Material for Efficient Nitrate-Nitrogen Adsorption

Xiaomi Meng; Lu Yao; Wenju Jiang; Xia Jiang; Chengjun Liu; Lin Yang

doi:10.1021/acsomega.0c05566

In Situ Growth Synthesis of the CNTs@AC Hybrid Material for Efficient Nitrate-Nitrogen Adsorption

ACS Omega. 2021 Jan 8;6(2):1612-1622. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.0c05566. eCollection 2021 Jan 19.

Authors

Xiaomi Meng¹, Lu Yao^{1

2}, Wenju Jiang^{1

2}, Xia Jiang^{1

2}, Chengjun Liu¹, Lin Yang^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ College of Architecture and Environment, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, P. R. China.
² National Engineering Research Center for Flue Gas Desulfurization, Chengdu 610065, P. R. China.
³ National Engineering Laboratory for Clean Technology of Leather Manufacture, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan 610065, China.

Abstract

Nitrate-nitrogen (NO₃-N) is a common pollutant in aquatic environments and causes many environmental issues and health problems. This study successfully applied the activated AC@CNT composite synthesized by CNTs in-situ growth and post-treated by myristyltrimethylammonium bromide (MTAB) for NO₃-N adsorption from wastewater. The results show that the highest NO₃-N adsorption capacity of AC@CNTs-M was 14.59 mg·g^-1. The in-situ growth of CNTs gave a higher specific surface area and more mesoporous volume, while MTAB uniformly occupied part of the pore structure after the modification process. The AC@CNTs-M had more surface functional groups of hydroxyl and carboxyl, which are favorable for the adsorption of NO₃-N. The NO₃-N adsorption on AC@CNTs-M was best defined by the pseudo-second-order model, and the isothermal analysis shows that NO₃-N adsorption is a multiple process with a maximum adsorption capacity of 27.07 mg·g^-1. All the results demonstrate the great potential of AC@CNTs-M for NO₃-N adsorption from water, especially in acidic wastewater.