Development and Characterization of Highly Crystalline Boron Doped Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes as Potential Adsorbent for Refinery Wastewater Treatment

Abstract

The development of novel engineering materials for adsorption process has received numerous attentions from researchers around the globe following the discharge of harmful materials into the environment due to massive industrialization. In line of this challenge, this study focuses on the development and application of purified multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and boron doped MWCNTs as novel adsorbents for the removal of phenol and cyanide. The boron doped MWCNTs was developed via impregnation method. The resulting boron-doped MWCNTs was characterized for its internal morphology, crystallinity, d-spacing, surface area and elemental composition using High-Resolution Transmission Electron Microscope (HR-TEM), X-Ray diffraction (XRD), Selected Area Diffraction (SAED), Braunner Emmett Teller (BET) and Energy Dispersion X-Ray (EDX) techniques respectively. The result of the simultaneous sorption of phenol and cyanide indicate that the optimum adsorption of 98.97 % and 96.84 % were observed at the residence time of 60 min, adsorbent dosage of 0.3 g and temperature of 60 oC for B-MWCNTs adsorbent respectively. The study revealed that the developed boron-doped MWCNTs possessed promising sorption properties suitable for phenol and cyanide removal from refinery wastewater.