Elsevier

Chemical Engineering Journal

Volume 361, 1 April 2019, Pages 1605-1616
Chemical Engineering Journal

Sustainable carbon microtube derived from cotton waste for environmental applications

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2018.11.157Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Introducing a novel carbon microtube from waste cotton for environmental applications.

  • High performance tannic acid absorption for cotton based carbon microtube.

  • The incredibly low cost and high performance candidate for various environmental applications.

  • π-π Interactions and hydrogen bonds between TA and CMT as an absorption mechanism.

Abstract

Given its natural state and cost-effectiveness, cotton can be an ideal material for the fabrication of high performance catalyst and pollutant removal from the environment. In this study, novel carbon microtube derived from cotton waste were successfully prepared by thermal treatment of cotton in an argon atmosphere and used as a tannic acid sorbent. Carbon microtube (CMT) properties were investigated by electron microscopy (SEM, TEM), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), zeta potentiometer and N2 adsorption − desorption. The most stable solutions in water were established using CMT treated at 900 and 1300 °C and in tannic acid (TA) at 1100 and 1300 °C, respectively. Maximum TA sorption capacity, 596.5 mg g−1, was found for CMT treated at 1100 °C. The suitability of Langmuir model with simultaneously good fitting of other tested models of sorption implied that monolayer sorption was the first step of TA sorption onto CMT via π–π interactions and hydrogen bonds. Given the repeatability, high removal performance and cost effectiveness of the cotton based carbon microtubes when compared to other well-known sorbent such as carbon nanotubes, the carbon microtubes demonstrated great potential as low-cost and effective tannic acid (and dissolved organic matter) adsorbent.

Introduction

There is a global rising awareness that current material consumption and reuse is not environmentally friendly and sustainable. This requires further development of new techniques for reuse and recycling of materials in an economical way [51,52,37]. By reusing waste materials as a valuable precursor for development of water purification agents, there will be true potential for significant saving in energy and resources [42,37]. The design of low-cost and high-performance materials for water purification and removal of pollutants from wastewater is the key to promote their future commercialization [43]. Among all carbon based materials e.g. carbon fiber, fullerene, graphene and graphene oxide,) carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been successfully used in water purification and wastewater treatment [12], [50].

Carbon nanotubes superior physical, electrical, mechanical, optical, and thermal properties along with large surface area and porosity, chemical inertness, great volume to mass ratio and strong affinity towards pollutants make them the most studied material nowadays [[7], [11], [22], [27], [38], [39], [48], [49], [50]]. CNTs are widely used as sorbents [5] and co-catalysts [45] for environmental applications. However due to the high cost of CNTs, development of alternative low-cost carbonaceous structure for environmental application needs to be explored.

The use of natural materials for fabrication of catalysis and removal agent remains a major challenge due to difficulty in fabrication process, and the high portion of impurity in material [21], [57]. Various precursors have been used for fabrication of carbon based catalysis, however the use of natural cotton for environmental application in the form of carbonized carbon is not reported yet [[2], [37], [43], [51]].

One of the regulatory factors in the environment is dissolved organic matter (DOM) [4]. DOM affect the transport of compounds/pollutants in water [24]. Adsorption of DOM onto particles alters their surface charge and simultaneously their aggregation ability and deposition [53]. The aggregation ability is an important factor affecting CNTs fate in the environment [9], [19]. CNTs are well known due to their high bioavailability and DOM-coated CNTs display lower aggregation and deposition [53]. Tannic acid (TA) is a well-known high-molecular-weight polyphenol with multiple adjacent hydroxyl groups found in different parts of plants [65]. On the other hand, naturally occurring water soluble organic matters in drinking water may act as the precursor of carcinogenic disinfection byproducts [60]. Therefore, it is of high environmental importance to develop an inexpensive and effective sorbent for TA removal from drinking water [24].

There is limited studies looking into the fate of CNTs in the environment [36], especially the interactions of CNTs with DOM that increase stability of CNTs in water medium [36], [66]. One of the factors affecting CNTs behavior in the environment is their functionality (presence of defect sites and oxygen functional groups) as pristine CNTs are unsusceptible for degradation [8]. The other factor affecting the fate of CNTs in water environment is their dispersity and strong tendency to aggregate.

The information on the effect of solution conditions on the CNT’s DOM-desorption ability and kinetics of reactions involved is very important. These information are necessary to fully understand the potential of the CNTs or other carbonaceous structure as an adsorbing agents.

Due to high cost of CNT and other nanomaterials, the implementation of these materials in large scale is limited. To overcome this challenge, the search for any other low-cost alternative materials with high performance continues both in in academia and industry. Cotton have been used recently for environmental application in aerogel form [10], MOF/Cotton composite [1] or graphene-oxide-coated cotton for oil removal [18]. In this study, for the first time a super hard carbon microtube has been prepared from cotton waste using a one-step fabrication technique and directly was employed as a precursor for environmental applications. The fabricated carbon microtubes (CMT) exhibited an excellent performance in DOM sorption. In this study both the extent of TA adsorption (kinetics and isotherms) and the stability of carbon microtubes (CMT) and CT-TA solutions are established. To the best of our knowledge, there is no report on the effect of DOM adsorption onto cotton derived carbon microtubes and its use for environmental applications.

Section snippets

Materials

Tannic acid (C76H52O46, TA) (Sigma-Aldrich, Poland) was used for studies of adsorption and stabilization. Distilled water (Millipore) was used for the preparation of the water solutions. Cotton bundle was purchased from the local industries (Australia).

Carbon microtubes preparation

Carbon microtubes (CMT9, CTM11, CMT13 and CMT 15) were prepared by the direct pyrolysis of cotton. The cotton roll firstly washed with ethanol and deionized water and dried in a fan forced oven (75 °C) overnight. Then cotton samples were placed

CMT properties

The BET surface area varied with the carbonization temperature. The calculated surface area of obtained CMT decreased with the increase in carbonization temperature; the CMT9 showed the largest BET surface area of 533.5 m2 g−1 while the CMT11, CMT13 and CMT15 exhibited smaller surface areas of 388.6, 426.1 and 406 m2 g−1, respectively. In addition, the pore size distribution in each sample varied depending on the carbonization temperature. For the CMT9 and CMT11, a large amount of micropores

Conclusions

Carbon microtube (CMT) derived from cotton waste was fabricated and used for the first time as a tannic acid (TA) absorbent. The process of TA sorption was limited by chemical reaction of TA with CMT surface (a pseudo-second order kinetics). The suitability of Langmuir model with simultaneously good fitting of other tested models (except Temkin) implied that monolayer sorption was the first step of TA sorption onto CMT. The mechanism involved was found to be π-π interactions and hydrogen bonds

Acknowledgements

Deakin University PhD scholarship awarded to the first author is acknowledged. Authors would like to thank Deakin University’s Advanced Characterization team for use of the Electron microscopy facility and in particular assistance from Dr Andrew Sullivan and Ms. Rosey Squire. Support from Australian Research Council World Class Future Fibre Industry Transformation Hub (IH140100018) is acknowledged.

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      Cotton has lately been employed in the environment in the form of aerogels (Shirvanimoghaddam et al., 2019) or graphene-oxide-coated cotton for oil elimination (Hoai, Sang and Hoang, 2017). In the study by Shirvanimoghaddam et al. (2019), new carbon microtubes generated from cotton waste were effectively manufactured via thermally treating cotton waste in an argon environment and utilized as a tannic acid sorbent. The study by Shirvanimoghaddam et al. (2019) explained that new carbon microtubes (CMTs) generated from cotton waste were effectively manufactured via thermally treating cotton waste in an argon environment and utilized as a tannic acid (TA) sorbent.

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