Chitosan-based carbon nanoparticles as a heavy metal indicator and for wastewater treatment

The increasingly serious problem of heavy metal ion pollution has caused great harm to human health and the environment. It is urgent to develop a simple and feasible method to remove heavy metal ions in wastewater. In this paper, we prepared blue-green fluorescent carbon nanoparticles (chi-CNPs) with chitosan as the raw material, which realized the efficient removal of heavy metal ions. In addition, the removal effect of heavy metal ions can be evaluated by the fluorescence changes of chi-CNPs. Finally, we applied chi-CNPs to the treatment of industrial wastewater. The value of the total dissolved solids (TDS) was used to evaluate the treatment effect. The removal rate of heavy metal ions by chi-CNPs was 54.6%, which was much higher than that of other carbon dots or semiconductors. Because of its simplicity, safety and cleanliness, it is suitable for large-scale production and is expected to become a general method to solve the pollution of heavy metal ions in wastewater.