Growth of carbon structures on chrysotile surface for organic contaminants removal from wastewater

• Chrysotile is used to produce amphiphilic composites by CVD at different temperatures.
• The materials can be used in adsorption and oxidation process of organic contaminants.
• The materials can remove up to 90% in turbidity of wastewater contaminated with oil.
• The composites are able to remove the methylene blue color of a solution up to 92%.

Amphiphilic magnetic composites were produced based on chrysotile mineral and carbon structures by chemical vapor deposition at different temperatures (600–900 °C) and cobalt as catalyst. The materials were characterized by elemental analysis, X-ray diffraction, vibrating sample magnetometry, adsorption and desorption of N2, Raman spectroscopy, scanning electronic microscopy, and thermal analysis showed an effective growth of carbon structures in all temperatures. It was observed that at 800 and 900 °C, a large amount of carbon structures are formed with fewer defects than at 600 and 700 °C, what contributes to their stability. In addition, the materials present magnetic phases that are important for their application as catalysts and adsorbents. The materials have shown to be very active to remove the oil dispersed in a real sample of emulsified wastewater from biodiesel production and to remove methylene blue by adsorption and oxidation via heterogeneous Fenton mechanism.

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