Investigation of Mesoporous Graphitic Carbon Nitride as the Adsorbent to Remove Ni (II) Ions

The mesoporous graphitic carbon nitride (mpg-C3N4/r, r was defined as the initial silica/dicyandiamide mass ratio) was successfully synthesized by heating the mixture of silica and dicyandiamide in a nitrogen atmosphere. The morphology and structure of mpg-C3N4/r were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface area measurement (BET), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), and Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). The adsorption performances of Ni (II) ions by mpg-C3N4/r were investigated. With increasing of r value, the BET specific surface area of the synthesized mpg-C3N4/r increased; the highest specific surface area of mpg-C3N4/1.5 increased up to 169.3 m2/g. This work shows that mpg-C3N4/1.5 is a promising, high-efficiency adsorbent that can be used to purify the water of a low Ni (II) ions concentration. The maximum adsorption capacity of Ni(II) ions by mpg-C3N4/1.5 was 15.26 mg/g. The adsorption properties of Ni (II) ions by mpg-C3N4/r complied well with pseudo-second-order kinetics and Langmuir isotherm model.