Adsorption removal of o-nitrophenol and p-nitrophenol from wastewater by metal-organic framework Cr-BDC

In the present paper, a metal-organic framework Cr-BDC was prepared and used as adsorbent for adsorption of o-nitrophenol (ONP) and p-nitrophenol (PNP) from aqueous solutions. Cr-BDC was characterized by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscope, X-ray diffraction and BET methods. The results indicate that Cr-BDC gets a very large specific surface area of 4128 m2·g− 1 and pore sizes are concentrated in 1 nm, which is a benefit for using for wastewater treatment. The influences of the adsorption conditions, such as temperature, solution concentration, adsorption time and reusability on adsorption performance were investigated. Cr-BDC exhibited an encouraging uptake capacity of 310.0 mg·g− 1 for ONP, and adsorption capacity of Cr-BDC for ONP is significantly higher than that for PNP under suitable adsorption conditions. The characterizations of adsorption process were examined with the Lagergren pseudo-first-order, the pseudo-second-order kinetic model, and the intra-particular diffusion model. Kinetics experiments indicated that the pseudo-second-order model displayed the best correlation with adsorption kinetics data. Furthermore, our adsorption equilibrium data could be better described by the Freundlich equation. The results indicate that the as-prepared Cr-BDC is promising for use as an effective and economical adsorbent for ONP removal.