Facile synthesis of Fe3O4@C hollow nanospheres and their application in polluted water treatment

Nanostructured carbon-based materials, such as carbon nanotube arrays have shown respectable removal ability for heavy metal ions and organic dyes in aqueous solution. Although the carbon-based materials exhibited excellent removal ability, the separation of them from the aqueous solution is difficult and time-consuming. Here we demonstrated a novel and facile route for the large-scale fabrication of Fe₃O₄@C hollow nanospheres, with using ferrocene as a single reagent and SiO₂ as a template. The as-prepared Fe₃O₄@C hollow nanospheres exhibited adsorption ability for heavy metal ions and organic dyes from aqueous solution, and can be easily separated by an external magnet. When the as-prepared Fe₃O₄@C hollow nanospheres were mixed with the aqueous solution of Hg²⁺ within 15 min, the removal efficiency was 90.3%. The as-prepared Fe₃O₄@C hollow nanospheres were also exhibited a high adsorption capacity (100%) as the adsorbent for methylene blue (MB). In addition, the as-prepared Fe₃O₄@C hollow nanospheres can be used as the recyclable sorbent for water treatment via a simple magnetic separation.