Adsorption is common process used for the removal of environmental contaminants in wastewater treatment and industrial treatment process.  Recently, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been attracting much attention and applied in adsorption process due to the unique properties.  Original CNTs favor the sorption of hydrophobic aromatic compounds from the aquatic solutions due to the p-p interaction between aromatic molecules and the grapheme sheets.  After oxidation and functionalization of CNTs, the hydrophilic property increases due to the creation of the larger number of oxygen-containing functional groups (�OH, -C=O and �COOH) on the external surface so as to be possibly applied for the adsorption of metal ions and cationic organic compounds from the solutions.  However, the size of CNTs is about nano-sized scale so as to result in the high drop pressure in the fixed column, which limits the application of CNTs.  Magnetic CNTs (mCNTs) have advantages of more contact areas between analytes and carbon nanotubes, simple magnetic separation, and that the filtration is not needed, so as to possess high potential applications on the adsorptive removal of aquatic contaminants. In this study, mCNTs based on the commercial multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) have been synthesized by means of chemical coprecipitation and amidation processes, respectively.  The physicochemical properties of resulting materials were characterized by SEM, FTIR, SQUID and TGA. Furthermore, the resulting mCNTs were used as adsorbents for removal of humic acid and arsenic acid from aqueous solutions.  The adsorption behaviour of single and mixture target compounds were also investigated.  The obtained mCNTs are proved to possess high adsorption ability for removal of aquatic contaminants and to be easily separated by a simple magnet.

Synthesis of magnetic carbon nanotubes and its applications to the removal of environmental contaminants

248th National Meeting (2014)

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