With the rapid growth of the world population, water is fast becoming the planet's most precious natural resource. While industrial activity keeps rising, the need to reuse water and reduce effluent pollution has led to the development of various methods to remove contaminants from aquatic environments. To this aim, advanced techniques such as nanofiltration, ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis can be used. However, high cost limits their application at a global scale. One of the most commonly employed methods consists of using sorbents of high binding affinity and capacity to selectively remove residues of undesirable chemicals from aqueous phase. Due to their large surface area, high hydrophobicity and strong interactions with organic compounds, carbon nanomaterials have shown great promise in environmental remediation. In this study, graphene nanoplatelet-single-walled carbon nanotube hybrid papers exhausted with 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, one of the most extensively applied herbicides for the control of broad-leaved weeds in fields, were recovered by a combination of thermal oxidation and microwave irradiation. The recycling efficiency investigated after multiple saturation/regeneration cycles, based upon changes in optical absorption spectra, showed significant improvements in the adsorption capacity of the original nanocomposites with regeneration efficiencies exceeding 200%. These results demonstrate a possible new adsorbent system that could be utilized to combat the rising concern of pollutants in the environment.

Enhanced adsorption of carbon nanocomposites exhausted with 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid after regeneration by thermal oxidation and microwave irradiation

248th National Meeting (2014)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.