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Removal, recovery and enrichment of metals from aqueous solutions using carbon nanotubes

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Abstract

Environmental pollution caused by toxic metals (heavy metals, radioactive metals, etc.) is one of the major global issues, thus removal of toxic metals from contaminated water seems to be particularly important. On the other hand, the recovery and enrichment of metals, especially noble metals, from waste water is also crucial. To address these issues, nanotechnology plays an essential role in environmental monitoring and pollution control. To remove metals from contaminated water, or enrich metals from waste water, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and their composites have attracted great attention due to their excellent adsorption performance. The removal efficiency for metal ions by CNTs was observed aroud 10–80 %, which could be improved to approach 100 % by selectively functionalizing CNTs with organic ligands. Herein, we review the applications of CNTs in treatment of toxic metal-containing wastewater for environmental monitoring and metals recovery. Due to their higher sensitivity and selectivity towards the enrichment of metals or detection of toxic metal pollution of the environment, and the latest research progress of using CNT composites for metal treatment is also discussed.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the financial supports from National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21201181), Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (No. 20110162120070), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2013M542107) and Open Fund of Key Laboratory of Resources Chemistry of Nonferrous Metals, Ministry of Education (No. 2012-KF-04).

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Yu, JG., Zhao, XH., Yu, LY. et al. Removal, recovery and enrichment of metals from aqueous solutions using carbon nanotubes. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 299, 1155–1163 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-013-2818-y

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