Effective adsorption of chlorpyrifos pesticides by HKUST-1 metal-organic framework

Increased use of pesticides has led to severe environmental and health issues in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, and precise removal of pesticides from the environment is of great importance. Therefore, this problem has attracted the attention of researchers toward metal-organic frameworks, which can be used as adsorbents because of their high porosity, large surface area, more active sites, and easy production. In this study, HKUST-1 was synthesized by the solvothermal method. The characterization of this copper-based metal-organic framework (MOF) was done by different techniques, i.e., XRD, FTIR, PSA, FESEM, EDX, and N-2-sorption. HKUST-1 was applied for adsorptive removal of chlorpyrifos, where the correlation between the parameters, such as adsorbent dose, pH, temperature, and contact time, were optimized. Under optimal conditions, the maximum adsorptive capacity for chlorpyrifos was found to be 102 mg/g, and the maximum removal efficiency was recorded as 76%. The results from the present study can be considered important for potential future applications of MOFs, especially to attend environmental issues.