Mercury removal from aqueous solution using petal-like MoS 2 nanosheets

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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Mercury removal from aqueous solution using petal-like MoS2 nanosheets Ragini Pirarath1, Palani Shivashanmugam2, Asad Syed3, Abdallah M. Elgorban3, Sambandam Anandan (✉)1, Muthupandian Ashokkumar4 1 Department of Chemistry, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli-620015, India 2 Department of Chemical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli-620015, India 3 Department of Botany and Microbiology, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia 4 School of Chemistry, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Vic-3010, Australia

HIGHLIGHTS

GRAPHIC ABSTRACT

• Synthesized few-layered MoS2 nanosheets via surfactant-assisted hydrothermal method. • Synthesized MoS2 nanosheets show petal-like morphology. • Adsorbent showed 93% of mercury removal efficiency. • The adsorption of mercury is attributed to negative zeta potential (-21.8 mV).

ARTICLE INFO Article history:

Received 30 March 2020 Revised 26 May 2020 Accepted 9 June 2020 Available online 7 August 2020 Keywords: Anionic surfactant 2D material MoS2 nanosheets Mercury removal Adsorption capacity

ABSTRACT Recently, different nanomaterial-based adsorbents have received greater attention for the removal of environmental pollutants, specifically heavy metals from aqueous media. In this work, we synthesized few-layered MoS2 nanosheets via a surfactant-assisted hydrothermal method and utilized them as an efficient adsorbent for the removal of mercury from aqueous media. The synthesized MoS2 nanosheets showed petal-like morphology as confirmed by scanning electron microscope and high-resolution transmission electron microscopic analysis. The average thickness of the nanosheets is found to be about 57 nm. Possessing high stability and negative zeta potential makes this material suitable for efficient adsorption of mercury from aqueous media. The adsorption efficiency of the adsorbent was investigated as a function of pH, contact time and adsorbent dose. The kinetics of adsorption and reusability potential of the adsorbent were also performed. A pseudo-second-order kinetics for mercury adsorption was observed. As prepared MoS2 nanosheets showed 93% mercury removal efficiency, whereas regenerated adsorbent showed 91% and 79% removal efficiency in the respective 2nd and 3rd cycles. The adsorption capacity of the adsorbent was found to be 289 mg/g at room temperature. © Higher Education Press 2020

1 ✉ Corresponding author E-mail: [email protected]

Introduction

With the fast development of industrial technologies and civilization, environmental pollution (including air, water, and soil) has come to a critical situation that every living

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Front. Environ. Sci. Eng. 2021, 15(1): 15

organism on the earth is affected in one way or another. The effluents from various industries like fertilizers, electroplating, mining, textile, metallurgy, etc. contain pollutants such as organic dyes and heavy metal ions. Among these, mercury is considered as one of the highly toxic heavy metals which have been widely used as a cathode m