What is it about?
One of the most ill-defined term in water industry is "heavy metal contaminants" and definitions and standards vary by country. But there is general consensus among all that presence of arsenic in drinking water is undesirable and must be removed. There are many adsorbents for As removal.. but magnetically separable stand apart since they are easy to reprocess and recycle. In this paper, my aim was to exploit the 3D mesoporous architecture of vertically standing CNT on graphene substrates for arsenic removal.
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Why is it important?
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Perspectives
My previous technique to synthesize G-CNT (DOI: 10.1021/nn3046133) involved expensive ionic liquids and palladium catalyst. So, I was searching for a cheaper alternative and I found the classic paper by CNR Rao who synthesized CNT from pyrolysis of Ferrocene (DOI: 10.1039/A802258E). Prof. Rao used a two stage pyrolysis process in inert atmosphere and obtained highly aligned CNTs with very good yield. I tweaked Prof. Rao's technique by using microwave pyrolysis and got G-CNT-Fe. Cobaltocene and Nickelocene also gave G-CNT-Co and G-CNT-Ni respectively, but I couldn't obtain CNT using zirconcene dihydride, even though Zr oxides are known to be good catalysts for CNT growth(DOI: 10.1021/ja902913r ). Coming to arsenic removal, I was not surprised by the enhanced adsorption capacity of G-CNT-Fe when compared to G-Fe.
Dr Vadahanambi Sridhar
Pusan National University
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This page is a summary of: Arsenic Removal from Contaminated Water Using Three-Dimensional Graphene-Carbon Nanotube-Iron Oxide Nanostructures, Environmental Science & Technology, September 2013, American Chemical Society (ACS),
DOI: 10.1021/es401389g.
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