Highly porous carbon from a natural cellulose fiber as high efficiency sorbent for lead in waste water

•Carbonization of milkweed floss provides a hollow carbon.•Sorbent has very high sorption of 320 mg/g for lead.•No modification done to the milkweed carbon.•Low cost, high sorption suitable for industrial applications.

The persistence of hollow centre in the carbon obtained from milkweed floss provides exceptional sorption characteristics, not seen in common biomasses or their derivatives. A considerably high sorption of 320 mg of lead per gram of milkweed carbon was achieved without any chemical modification to the biomass. In this research, we have carbonized milkweed floss and used the carbon as a sorbent for lead in waste water. A high surface area of 170 m2 g−1 and pore volume of 1.07 cm3 g−1 was seen in the carbon. Almost complete removal (>99% efficiency) of lead could be achieved within 5 min when the concentration of lead in the solution was 100 ppm, close to that prevailing in industrial waste water. SEM images showed that the carbon was hollow and confocal images confirmed that the sorbate could penetrate inside the hollow tube.

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