Luffa sponge-derived hierarchical meso/macroporous boron nitride fibers as superior sorbents for heavy metal sequestration

Boron nitride (BN) has received tremendous attention as a promising adsorbent material. However, unsatisfactory uptake capacities over heavy metal ions limit their practical applications. Herein, we have synthesized a novel hierarchical meso/macroporous BN fibers (MBNFs) via a simple carbothermal reduction method using luffa sponge as a template. The as-obtained MBNFs comprise densely arranged parallel macrochannels on a micrometer scale, with mesopores on the surface of the channel. The resulting MBNFs exhibited remarkable adsorption performance for different heavy metal ions including Cd2+, Zn2+, Cr3+, and Pb2+ with maximum uptake capacities as high as 2989, 1885, 723, and 453 mg/g, respectively. In particular, the adsorption capacity for Cd2+ and Zn2+ exceed the highest values reported for BN materials. In addition, the MBNFs showed excellent stability to re-use for a few times. The present MBNFs materials prepared using cheap and earth abundant luffa sponge may find broad applications such as adsorbent for environmental remediation applications.