In Situ Fabrication and Characterization of g-C3N4 onto Cellulose Nanofibers and Selective Separation of Heavy Metal Ions

Uzma Haseen; Sakshi Kapoor; Rais Ahmad Khan; Hilal Ahmad; Bon Heun Koo

doi:10.1021/acsomega.3c08177

In Situ Fabrication and Characterization of g-C₃N₄ onto Cellulose Nanofibers and Selective Separation of Heavy Metal Ions

ACS Omega. 2023 Dec 27;9(1):1620-1626. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.3c08177. eCollection 2024 Jan 9.

Authors

Uzma Haseen¹, Sakshi Kapoor², Rais Ahmad Khan³, Hilal Ahmad^{4

5}, Bon Heun Koo⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh 202002, India.
² Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi 110016, India.
³ Department of Chemistry, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia.
⁴ Division of Computational Physics, Institute for Computational Science, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City 700000, Vietnam.
⁵ Faculty of Applied Sciences, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City 700000, Vietnam.
⁶ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Changwon National University, Changwon 1140, Gyeongnam, South Korea.

Abstract

Graphitic carbon nitride nanosheets were synthesized onto cellulose nanofiber surfaces utilizing an eco-friendly salt melt approach. The fabricated material CNF@C₃N₄ selectively removes Ni(II) and Cu(II) from electroplating wastewater samples. The immobilization of g-C₃N₄ on solid substrates eases handling of nanomaterial in a flow-through approach and mitigates sorbent loss during column operations. Characterization techniques such as scanning electron microscopy, tunneling electron microscopy, and X-ray photoelectron microscopy were employed to analyze the surface morphology and chemical bonding within the synthesized material. Selective Cu(II) and Ni(II) sorption predominantly arises from the soft-soft interaction between metal ions and associated nitrogen groups. An inner-sphere surface complexation mechanism effectively elucidated the interaction dynamics between the metal and CNF@C₃N₄. Experimental findings demonstrated satisfactory separation of Ni(II) and Cu(II) ions, with the extraction of 340.0 and 385.0 mg g^-1 of material, respectively. Additionally, the devised technique was executed for the preconcentration and quantification of trace metals ions in water samples with a detection limit and limit of quantification of 0.06 and 0.20 μg L^-1, respectively.