Sustainable valorization of mesoporous aluminosilicate composite from display panel glasses waste for adsorption of heavy metal ions.

The recycling of the huge amount of thin film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) glass wastes has become one of the worldwide environmental issues. Herein, a novel and cost-effective synthesis method for the fabrication of mesoporous aluminosilicate composite (M-ANC) from the TFT-LCD waste has been developed to serve as the environmentally benign adsorbent for the removal of metal ions including Cu2+, Zn2+ and Ni2+. After melting at 1000 °C in the presence of Na2CO3 for phase separation, nanoparticles with average particle size of 12 nm appear on the surface of M-ANC, and subsequently results in the production of mesoporous structure with a surface area of 175 m2 g-1. The tailored M-ANC shows negatively charged and functional groups, which exhibits an excellent adsorption capacity toward metal ion removal in the pH range of 1.5-7.0. The maximum Langmuir adsorption capacity of Cu2+, Zn2+ and Ni2+ are determined to be 64.5, 34.0 and 23.1 mg g-1, respectively, at pH 3.5. Moreover, the environmental applicability of M-ANC is evaluated by column experiment in the presence of real electroplating wastewater. M-ANC can effectively remove Ni2+ in the electroplating wastewater with the adsorption capacity of 18.7 mg g-1. Results obtained in this study clearly indicate that M-ANC recycled from TFT-LCD is a novel environmentally friendly adsorbent toward metal ion removal, which can open a gateway to fabricate mesoporous aluminosilicate materials through the recycling of other electronic wastes for real environmental application to remove metal ions and other emerging pollutants in the contaminated water and wastewater.