Facile separation of aromatic pollutant/water by lignosulfonate based superparamagnetic composites

Cost-effective and green separation of aromatic pollutant from waste water is of great importance in sustainable chemistry and engineering but under challenges of high energy consumption and unsatisfactory separation efficiency. Herein, induced by the electrostatic interactions, lignosulfonate (LS) based superparamagnetic composite LS@γ-Fe₂O₃ was developed without any surface modification and activation process. The LS@γ-Fe₂O₃ magnetic composites exhibited meaningful amphiphilicity and then were applied as efficient material for the separation of toluene/water system through the combination of gravity filtration and magnetic demulsification methods. The results demonstrated that the composites exhibited an excellent separation rate (over 99.05 %) towards toluene/water with gravity filtration method. For the water with low toluene content (< 1/1000 v/v), demulsification method was preferred to gravity filtration method. In addition to the efficient separation of toluene, the performance of present magnetic composites LS@γ-Fe₂O₃ was also exciting when it was extended to the separation of post-consumed dye solution.