Bubble-induced self-assembly synthesis of defective hierarchical boehmite with ultra-high removal efficiency towards Congo red: Preparation and adsorption mechanism

[Display omitted] •A novel defective hierarchical micro-sorbent has been manufactured through Bubble-induced self-assembly synthesis route.•The as-synthesized super-sorbent with hierarchical structure demonstrates sufficient strengths in microstructure.•The BMS-4 super-sorbent exhibits the best adsorption properties and exceptional recovery and recycling performance for Congo red.•It is illustrated that the amino protonation, oxygen vacancy capture and BMS-4/CR–SO3+–NH3 mechanism enhances adsorption for CR dyes. To cope with the increasingly urgent environmental issue and provide promising alternative adsorbents, the synergistic preparation route of dissolution and bubble-induced self-assembly was firstly exploited to guide the reconstruction process of a defective hierarchical porous boehmite-microspheres (BMS) adsorbent in a favorable direction to improve the CR adsorption capacity using aluminium hydroxide industrial waste as raw materials. Multiple non-in-situ physicochemical characterization instruments demonstrate that BMS-4 adsorbent possesses abundant coordinatively unsaturated Al–species, large specific surface area, high porosity, oxygen vacancies and oxygen-containing groups, which promote the maximum adsorption capacities for CR up to 6805.08 ± 5.4 mg g−1. Moreover, the Pseudo-second order model and the Langmuir model are more suitable for describing the behavior of CR adsorption, which proves it is more inclined to be monolayer adsorption and there is no chemical reaction between CR and adsorbent. More importantly, it can be practiced in eight cycles of adsorption tests, achieving ultra-high stability for over 94.46 % of the original adsorption capacity. Combined with density-functional theory (DFT) calculations and experimental results, it is illustrated that the amino protonation is responsible for the additional enhancement of CR adsorption, in addition, oxygen vacancy capture and BMS-4/CR–SO3+–NH3 mechanism for enhanced adsorption of dyes is proposed, both of which show that bubble-induced self-assembly provides a promising route for the preparation of high-performance adsorbents.