Fabricating the Slit-Shaped Structure of Nanosheets: Effectively Selective Adsorption for Cu(Ii) from Wastewater

Due to outstanding adsorption capacity, graphene oxide (GO) is widely considered as an auspicious material for metal ion separation to deal with water pollution. In this work, based on the stacking of GO and montmorillonite (MMT), as well as cross-linking with sodium alginate (SA), aerogels with abundant slit-shaped pores is prepared to selectively adsorb Cu(Ⅱ), noted as G/M/S aerogel. The results show that the prepared G/M/S aerogel is endowed with large specific surface area (266.3 m2 g-1) and high removal efficiency for Cu(Ⅱ) (95.1%), contributing by creating abundant slit-shaped pores that can selectively remove planar hydrated copper. Moreover, the competitive adsorption experiment is carried out with complex system of coexisting cationic, suggesting the adsorption order is Cu(Ⅱ) >> Zn(Ⅱ) > Mn(Ⅱ) > Cr(Ⅲ) > Cr(Ⅵ). In addition, design of experiment (DOE) is carried out to reveal the effects of single factors on the adsorption of Cu(Ⅱ) with G/M/S aerogel, confirming that pH > Dosage > Temperature > Time. All the obtained results suggest that G/M/S aerogel could be considered as a kind of material with great potential to selectively remove Cu(Ⅱ) from wastewater.