Fast and efficient removal of orthophenanthroline and 2,2′2,2′-bipyridine from aqueous solutions by adsorption on modified nanoporous carbon

Ploycyclic Aromatic Nitrogen Heterocycles (PANHs) are a widespread class of water pollutants that are known to cause serious human health problems; and the demand for effective adsorbents for the removal of toxic compounds is increasing. In this work Ordered Mesoporous Carbon (OMC) was prepared by using SBA-3 silica mesoporous molecular sieves as hard template. Then, Cu(II) modified mesoporous carbon molecular sieves, Cu2+-OMC, was prepared through wet impregnation of OMC by CuSO4⋅5H2O. Orthophenanthroline (OP) and 2,2′2,2′-bipyridine (BP) were used as probe molecules to investigate their adsorption behavior on Cu2+-OMC. The synthesized mesoporous sample is used as a sorbent for fast and highly efficient removal of OP and BP from contaminated waters. The isotherms of OP and BP on Cu2+-OMC are well simulated by a Langmuir adsorption model. Theoretical studies show that the adsorption kinetics of OP and BP on Cu2+-OMC can be well depicted by using a pseudo-second-order kinetic model.