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Bi4Ti3O12/MXene/chitin composite sponge for enhanced photocatalytic adsorption of polystyrene microplastics.
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Researchers created a sponge material made from chitin, MXene and Bi4Ti3O12 to remove polystyrene microplastics from water in lab tests. Under light exposure, the sponge removed about 78% of the microplastics over 8 hours, working through a combination of physical adsorption and light-triggered chemical reactions that altered the plastic's surface.
While the long-term ecological effects of microplastics remain elusive, emerging ecotoxicological evidence points to potential intergenerational health impacts, underscoring the urgency for effective removal technologies. In response, this study developed a novel composite sponge by first synthesizing a tightly integrated MXene/Bi4Ti3O12 composite via a hydrothermal method, which was then uniformly dispersed and immobilized within a chitin sponge network. The composite nanoparticles were firmly anchored onto the chitin network via van der Waals forces or hydrogen bonding. The obtained sponge demonstrated novel enhanced photoelectric properties, which correlate with its superior photocatalytic performance. The adsorption kinetics experiment showed that the removal rate of PS MPs reached 77.82% (29.93% dark adsorption with 47.89% photocatalytic-enhanced adsorption) within 8 h of lighting. The adsorption process conformed to the pseudo-first-order kinetic model, indicating that the dominant mechanism of this process was physical adsorption. Under ultraviolet light irradiation, Bi4Ti3O12@MXene generates active free radicals, which can effectively attack the polymer main chains of microplastics. These caused oxidation on their surfaces, thereby introducing more oxygen-containing functional groups, and promoting the adsorption. The GC analysis results showed that the cumulative degradation rate of the two main intermediate products was only 13.07%. The results show that Bi4Ti3O12@MXene removes PS MPs through the combined effect of adsorption and photocatalytic oxidation. In summary, this study presents a novel photocatalytic-enhanced adsorption way to deal with MPs via photocatalytic platform based on a Bi4Ti3O12/MXene/chitin composite sponge, offering valuable theoretical and practical foundations for microplastic remediation.
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