Hydrothermal carbonization synthesis of a novel montmorillonite supported carbon nanosphere adsorbent for removal of Cr (VI) from waste water

In this work, a novel montmorillonite supported carbon nanosphere adsorbent (Mt-spC) was fabricated successfully by a green and facile technique called hydrothermal carbonization, which was used to remove Cr (VI) from an aqueous solution. The batch adsor'ption results showed that, when the adsorption equilibrium time was 60 min and the optimum adsorption pH was 2, this novel Mt-spC adsorbent exhibited excellent performance (156.25 mg/g) for the removal of Cr (VI), which was much higher than that of raw Mt and the previously reported values of other materials. Kinetic and isotherm studies showed that Cr (VI) adsorption was more favorable at a higher concentration and monolayer adsorption occurred on the adsorbents. Therefore, it can be suggested that this novel Mt-spC nanocomposite could be a good candidate for removing Cr (VI) from waste water, and this research provides a new route for the development of new environmental remediation nanomaterials.