Large-scale fabrication NZVI rod arrays on cotton fiber surfaces for efficient selenium adsorption

Aiming to solve the worldwide challenge of selenium pollution and selenium deficiency in partial districts, a simple and effective in situ growth process combined with seed growth method was used to load nanoscale zero-valent iron (NZVI) on the surface of cotton fiber (NZVI/C) for efficient selenium adsorption. The SEM results indicated that the FeOOH rods are perpendicular to the fiber and rooted in its surface to construct the stable structure. The obtained NZVI/C composites have high chemical reactivity and exhibit efficient extraction effect on selenium and the test results are recorded by ICP. More importantly, by adjusting the temperature, time, pH, dosage, and other conditions during the adsorption process, the separation performance of the NZVI/C composites can be further enhanced. The adsorption process of NZVI/C composites was endothermic reaction, and surface adsorption dominates the whole adsorption process. Moreover, this method realizes the controllable preparation of the ordered NZVI rod arrays on the cotton fiber, which can effectively solve the agglomeration problem of NZVI, and it is expected to be promoted to various fiber materials for easy, cheap, and large-scale production.