Selective adsorption and separation of dibenzothiophene by molecularly imprinted polymer on the surface of porous magnetic carbon nanospheres

A molecularly imprinted polymer was deposited on the surface of porous magnetic carbon nanosphere to obtain a sorbent for dibenzothiophene. The molecularly imprinted polymer was synthesized by using porous magnetic carbon nanosphere as the support, dibenzothiophene as the template, methacrylic acid as the functional monomer and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate as the cross-linker. Field-emission scanning electron microscopy and Fourier-transformation infrared spectroscopy were used to characterize the morphology and structure of the sorbent. Adsorption results in terms of kinetics, isotherms and selective recognition adsorption indicate that the saturated adsorption amount of the sorbent towards dibenzothiophene reaches 32.00 mg g−1 at 318 K within 40 min. The sorbent presents good selectivity for dibenzothiophene over benzothiophene with a relative selectivity coefficient of 1.70. The adsorption capacity of the sorbent towards dibenzothiophene still maintains 81.5% after five times of recycle, indicating that the obtained sorbent has excellent regeneration ability.