Adsorptive performance for methylene blue of magnetic Ni@activated carbon nanocomposites

Owing to the unique microporous structure and high specific surface area, activated carbon (AC) can act as a good candidate for functional materials. In this paper, Ni@AC magnetic nanocomposites with excellent magnetic response are synthesized by the hydrothermal method. All Ni@AC nanocomposites present ferromagnetism and Ni nanoparticles exist in the pores of AC. The saturation magnetization (M-s) increases with the increasing content of Ni, while the specific surface area and pore volume decrease. The S-50 sample possesses the parameters of the specific surface area of 1156.8 m(2).g(-1) and M-s of 3.5 emu/g. Furthermore, the methylene blue (MB) removal analysis indicates that 99% MB can be adsorbed in 50 min. The as-prepared Ni@AC nanocomposites present good adsorptive capacity of MB and can be separated easily from water by magnetic separation technique.