Advanced adsorbents need high adsorption rate and superior
adsorption capability to clean up organic methylene blue (MB) from
wastewater. We prepared K2Ti8O17 nanowires
grown along the [0 1 0] direction with a one-step hydrothermal method.
The K2Ti8O17 nanowires with tens
of nanometers in diameter and tens of micrometers in length were achieved
with smooth surfaces and twisted wire-like morphology. The K2Ti8O17 nanowires exhibit high uptake capacity
of ∼208.8 mg·g–1 in the MB removal under
equilibrium pH = 7. The adsorption equilibrium of MB onto the K2Ti8O17 adsorbent is achieved with a
97% removal rate of MB within only ∼21 min, which is the shortest
adsorption time among the recently reported inorganic adsorbents toward
MB. The adsorption process has a good agreement with the well-known
pseudo-second-order kinetic model (k
2 =
0.2) and the Langmuir isotherm model. Fourier transform infrared measurements
suggest that the adsorption can be assigned to the hydrogen bonding
and electrostatic attraction between MB and K2Ti8O17. This ultrafast removal ability is due to the larger
(0 2 0) interplanar spacing and zigzag surface structure of the nanowires,
which provide abundant active adsorption sites. Thermodynamic parameters
reflect the spontaneous, exothermic, and feasible uptake of MB. Besides,
K2Ti8O17 nanowires enjoy high adsorptive
ability for chromium(VI) ions and photocatalytic removal toward NO.
This work highlights the great significance of K2Ti8O17 nanowires as a low-cost promising material
used for the adsorptive elimination of organic contaminations in fast
water purification on a large scale.
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