Sustainable carbon microtube derived from cotton waste for environmental applications
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.
References (67)
- et al.
PVDF/graphene composite nanofibers with enhanced piezoelectric performance for development of robust nanogenerators
Compos. Sci. Technol.
(2017) - et al.
Trichloroethylene adsorption by pine needle biochars produced at various pyrolysis temperatures
Bioresour. Technol.
(2013) - et al.
Adsorption of synthetic organic contaminants by carbon nanotubes: a critical review
Water Res.
(2015) - et al.
Carbon nanotubes as sorbent material for removal of cadmium
J. Mol. Liq.
(2017) - et al.
Aggregation behaviour of engineered nanoparticles in natural waters: characterising aggregate structure using on-line laser light scattering
J. Hazard. Mater.
(2015) - et al.
Biodegradation of carbon nanotubes, graphene, and their derivatives
Trends Biotechnol.
(2017) - et al.
Multifunctional carbon nanotubes in water treatment: the present, past and future
Desalination
(2014) - et al.
Highly efficient removal of tannic acid from aqueous solution by chitosan-coated attapulgite
Chem. Eng. J.
(2012) - et al.
Sorption of tannic acid, phenol, and 2,4,5-trichlorophenol on organoclays
Water Res.
(1995) - et al.
Microwave and spark plasma sintering of carbon nanotube and graphene reinforced aluminum matrix composite
Arch. Civil Mech. Eng.
(2018)
Radical scavenging and antioxidant activity of tannic acid
Arab. J. Chem.
Thermal reduction of graphene-oxide-coated cotton for oil and organic solvent removal
Mater. Sci. Eng., B
The role of photochemical transformations in the aggregation and deposition of carboxylated multiwall carbon nanotubes suspended in water
Carbon
Removal of humic and tannic acids by adsorption–coagulation combined systems with activated biochar
J. Hazard. Mater.
Stochastic optimization models for energy management in carbonization process of carbon fiber production
Appl. Energy
Peroxidase-mediated biodegradation of carbon nanotubes in vitro and in vivo
Adv. Drug Deliv. Rev.
Tuning the adsorption capability of multi-walled carbon nanotubes to polar and non-polar organic compounds by surface oxidation
Sep. Purif. Technol.
Selective adsorption of aromatic acids by a nanocomposite based on magnetic carboxylic multi-walled carbon nanotubes and novel metal-organic frameworks
Appl. Surf. Sci.
The effect of ionic strength and pH on the stability of tannic acid-facilitated carbon nanotube suspensions
Carbon
Adsorption of tannic acid from aqueous solution onto surfactant-modified zeolite
J. Hazard. Mater.
Carbon nanotubes: impacts and behaviour in the terrestrial ecosystem – a review
Carbon
Functionally graded materials: a review of fabrication and properties
Appl. Mater. Today
Potential release scenarios for carbon nanotubes used in composites
Environ. Int.
Versatile use of droplet coagulation: shaping fine-grained SiO2 and Al2O3 waste streams into monodisperse microspheres
Sustainable Mater. Technol.
Applications of nanotechnology in water and wastewater treatment
Water Res.
Heteroaggregation and sedimentation rates for nanomaterials in natural waters
Water Res.
Photocatalytic properties of carbon nanotubes/titania nanoparticles composite layers deposited by electrophoresis
Mater. Sci. Semicond. Process.
Colloidal stability of suspended and agglomerate structures of settled carbon nanotubes in different aqueous matrices
Water Res.
Long-term colloidal stability of 10 carbon nanotube types in the absence/presence of humic acid and calcium
Environ. Pollut.
Cheetah skin structure: a new approach for carbon-nano-patterning of carbon nanotubes
Compos. A Appl. Sci. Manuf.
Periodical patterning of a fully tailored nanocarbon on CNT for fabrication of thermoplastic composites
Compos. A Appl. Sci. Manuf.
Sustainable periodically patterned carbon nanotube for environmental application: Introducing the cheetah skin structure
J. Cleaner Prod.
Carbon fiber reinforced metal matrix composites: fabrication processes and properties
Compos. A Appl. Sci. Manuf.
Cited by (36)
Multifunctional basalt fiber polymer composites enabled by carbon nanotubes and graphene
2024, Composites Part B: EngineeringEnhanced PFAS adsorption with N-doped porous carbon beads from oil-sand asphaltene
2023, Journal of Water Process EngineeringStrategies to resolve intrinsic conflicts between strength and toughness in polyethylene composites
2023, Advanced Industrial and Engineering Polymer ResearchCarbon-based material derived from biomass waste for wastewater treatment
2022, Environmental AdvancesCitation Excerpt :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.