Recyclable structured toxic industrial nickel-containing sludge for efficient anionic contaminant adsorption

Safe, efficient, and simultaneous treatment of toxic industrial sludge and anionic contaminant crisis in one route still remains a persistent global challenge. Herein, we proposed a facile waste-control-waste conceptual design strategy to develop low-cost and high-performance sludge-based adsorbent for not only recycling of toxic waste nickel-containing sludge (NCS) but for the efficient removal of anionic contaminants in wastewater. The as-designed Ni–Al layered double oxides/calcined NCS (Ni–Al LDOs/CNCS) (216.96 m 2 /g, 0.44 cm 3 /g) with hierarchical porous structure possessed a larger specific surface area and well-developed porosity compared with raw NCS (60.52 m 2 /g, 0.26 cm 3 /g). It was proved that a higher hydrothermal temperature (180 °C) and a longer hydrothermal time (24 h) both promote the in situ assembly of LDHs nanosheets on CNCS surface. Significantly, the sludge-based adsorbent displayed high adsorption capacity towards five representative anions including F − (~ 31.1 mg/g), SO 4 2− (~ 37.7 mg/g), NO 3 − (~ 21.8 mg/g), Cl − (~ 28.0 mg/g), and H 2 PO 4 − (~ 35.8 mg/g). Furthermore, the adsorbent maintained desirable adsorption capacity even after 6 adsorption/desorption cycles. Therefore, this study could be potentially extended toward design of other industrial waste sludge–derived high value-added advanced materials and for wastewater treatment applications.