Synthesis and Characterization of Flower-like Carbon-encapsulated Fe-C Nanoparticles for Application As Adsorbing Material

Overview

Journal Materials (Basel)

Publisher MDPI

Date 2019 Mar 16

PMID 30870977

Authors

Lixin Zhao

Xibin Dai

Baoe Li

Hongshui Wang

Haipeng Li

Chunyong Liang

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Carbon-encapsulated Fe-C (Fe-C@C) nanoparticles with a divergently flower-like morphology were successfully synthesized for application as an adsorbing material by using freeze-drying and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) methods. The Fe metallic source was first loaded onto a sodium chloride (NaCl) supporter via freeze-drying to obtain the Fe/NaCl composite powder. Then, Fe-C@C nanoparticles were synthesized in the temperature range of 300⁻450 °C via CVD of acetylene in the Fe/NaCl composite powder using Fe nanoparticles as catalysts and NaCl as supporters. Because the NaCl supporter is water-soluble, the synthesized Fe-C@C nanoparticles were easy to purify, and a high purity was obtained by simple washing and centrifugation. The optimal Fe-C@C nanoparticles, synthesized at 400 °C, possessed a unique divergently flower-like structure and a high specific surface area of 169.4 m²/g that can provide more adsorption sites for contaminants. Adsorption experiments showed that the flower-like Fe-C@C adsorbent exhibited high adsorption capacity (90.14 mg/g) and fast removal of methylene blue (MB). Moreover, the magnetic properties of the nanoparticles, with saturation magnetization of 36.544 emu/g, facilitated their magnetic separation from wastewater. Therefore, the novel flower-like Fe-C@C nanoparticles with integrated adsorptive and magnetic properties have the potential to be an effective adsorbent in dye wastewater treatment.

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