Preparation of sodium ligninsulfonate functionalized MXene using hexachlorocyclotriphosphazene as linkage and its adsorption applications

MXene is a newly emerged two-dimensional material that has been extensively explored for different applications, including as adsorbents for adsorptive removal of environmental pollutants. However, the lack of active adsorption sites will inevitably impede their adsorption performance and surface functionalization is generally required. In this work, a novel MXene-based adsorbent (named as Ti3C2-SL) was fabricated by a simple substitution reaction using hexachlorocyclotriphosphazene (HCCP) as the linkage to conjugate amino groups terminated Ti3C2 and sodium ligninsulfonate. Ti3C2-SL was examined as adsorbent for adsorption of doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX) and many experiments were performed to evaluate different parameters on the adsorption behaviors. These experimental data were fitted and related parameters were calculated to study the adsorption kinetics and thermodynamics. Results demonstrated that DOX can be rapidly adsorbed by Ti3C2-SL and the adsorption capacity reached a relatively high value within 2 min. The maximum adsorption capacity after equilibrium is up to 190.78 mg g−1, which is about four folds as compared with that of Ti3C2. The adsorption process is a spontaneous endothermic process and dominated by physical adsorption. All the above results suggested that Ti3C2-SL is promising for adsorptive removal environmental pollutants.