Solid-solid grinding/templating route to magnetically separable nitrogen-doped mesoporous carbon for the removal of Cu(2+) ions.

N-doped ordered mesoporous carbon materials (NOMC) with 2D hexagonal symmetry structure were synthesized via a facile solid-solid grinding/templating route, in which the ionic liquids (ILs) of 1-cyanoethyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride and SBA-15 were employed as the precursor and hard template, respectively. The as-synthesized NOMC features with a uniform mesoporous size (3.5nm), ropes-like morphology (0.4-1μm in length) and high surface area (803m(2)/g). The quantitative analysis revealed the nitrogen content on the surface of NOMC is 5.5at%. Magnetic iron nanoparticles were successfully embedded into the carbon matrix by introducing iron chloride to the mixture of SBA-15 and ILs during the synthesis process. The NOMC-Fe composite possessed superior adsorption capacity of Cu(2+) ions (23.6mg/g). Kinetic and isothermal analysis demonstrated the strong interactions between Cu(2+) ion and the adsorbent. Furthermore, the composite was magnetically separable from solution under an external magnetic field and thus displayed a superior reusability in the recycling test.