Activated Carbon and Carbon Quantum Dots/Titanium Dioxide Composite Based on Waste Rice Noodles: Simultaneous...

To achieve the full utilization of waste rice noodle (WRN) without secondary pollution, activated carbon (AC) and carbon quantum dots/titanium dioxide (CQDs/TiO₂) composite were simultaneously synthesized by using WRN as raw material. Both of the two materials showed potential applications in water pollution control. The AC based on WRN displayed a porous spherical micro-morphology, which could absorb heavy metal elements like Pb(II) and Cr(VI) efficiently, with a maximum equilibrium uptake of 12.08 mg·g^-1 for Pb(II) and 9.36 mg·g^-1 for Cr(VI), respectively. The adsorption of the resulted AC could match the Freundlich adsorption isotherm and the pseudo-second-order kinetics mode. On the other hand, the CQDs/TiO₂ composite based on WRN displayed a high efficient photocatalytic degradation effect on various water-soluble dyes such as methylene blue, malachite green, methyl violet, basic fuchsin, and rhodamine B under visible light irradiation, which showed better photocatalytic performance than commercial TiO₂. The introduction of CQDs based on WRN to TiO₂ could result in efficient electron-hole pair separation and enable more photogenerated electrons to reduce O₂ and more photogenerated holes to oxidize H₂O or OH^-, which could cause stronger abilities in producing O₂^·- and ·OH radical and better photocatalytic activity.