Bio-inspired N-doped carbon quantum dots as sustainable nanomaterials for the detoxification of polycyclic musk compounds galaxolide and tonalide from aqueous systems
摘要
The bio-inspired nitrogen-doped carbon quantum dots (N-CQDs) were synthesized through one-step hydrothermal conversion of Moringa oleifera seed husk. In this process, the seed husk serves as a carbon and nitrogen precursor. The EDX analysis of N-CQDs displaying a broad (002) diffraction band and weak (100) reflection confirms its quasi-graphitic nanostructure. The TEM analysis reveals the uniform dispersion of particles with an average diameter of 4.9 nm. The FT-IR and XPS analyses confirm the presence of abundant oxygen- and nitrogen-rich surface functional groups. Systematic optimization reveals that neutral pH (7), an adsorbent dose of 0.5 g/L, agitation at 150 rpm, and an initial analyte concentration of 100 μg/mL display the most efficient adsorption performance. In these optimized conditions, N-CQDs achieve high pollutant removal (> 90% for both musks), with rapid initial uptake followed by equilibrium at 120 min. The kinetic evaluation demonstrates that adsorption of both Galaxolide and Tonalide followed pseudo-second-order kinetics. This confirms that the chemisorption driven by hydrogen bonding, π–π interactions, and heteroatom-mediated donor–acceptor effects was the main driving mechanism for the adsorption. The equilibrium modeling reveals the strong agreement with Freundlich isotherm behavior (R2 > 0.98), confirming the heterogeneous multilayer adsorption. The Langmuir fits provide high monolayer capacities (367 mg/g for Galaxolide and 243 mg/g for Tonalide). The N-CQDs also exhibited excellent reusability and retained 80–78% of their initial removal efficiency after five cycles. Compared to previously reported adsorbents, the N-CQDs produced in this study offer a green, metal-free, low-energy, and sustainable alternative with superior affinity and operational stability.