A Novel Nano-Water-Purifying Material

摘要

Water contaminated by heavy metals remains a serious environmental and public health problem. The toxic effects of heavy metals on the biosphere have been demonstrated by a number of studies. Since the main sources of heavy metals for humans are water and food, the monitoring of the heavy metals content in natural water is of paramount importance. Diverse technologies have been used to reduce the contents of heavy metals in water. Recently, adsorption methods have been widely used because of their low cost. The novel nano-water-purifying material used in our work is composed of AlO(OH) nanoparticles loaded onto glass fibre and supported by active carbon felt. The Al nano-powder starting material, was prepared using an electric explosive technique. The products were characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope, transmission electron microscope, and BET techniques. It was found that the particles consisted of AlO(OH) nanofibres of pure boehmite structure. They exhibited a surface area of 431.7 m~2 / g. The composite material was found to be effective in removing cadmium from dilute aqueous solutions and could find broad application in heavy metal removal.