| Abstract: | Highly toxic divalent cadmium causes serious environmental issues. To quickly monitor and/or efficiently remove this potentially toxic metal ion as well as to explore its interfacial chemistry with metal oxides, a sulfur and carbon co‐doped titania (S/C‐TiO2) composite is synthesized via a facile sol‐gel method with the assistance of sodium lignosulphonate (SLS). The prepared composite displays a well‐crystallized TiO2 nanostructure comprising the anatase phase. Both S and C, which are derived from the SLS template, are found to enter the TiO2 lattice. The S/C‐TiO2 composite exhibits a porous structure with a wide pore size distribution. The newly synthesized composite shows adsorption capability for the potentially toxic metal Cd(II). The adsorption process requires <5 min to reach equilibrium. The measured equilibrium adsorption capacity is 19.42 mg g?1, which is twice as high as that of bare TiO2. The removal efficiency is as high as 97%. Moreover, the materials are suitable for contaminated solutions over a wide range of pH values and various initial cadmium concentrations. A mechanism for the enhanced adsorption behavior is also proposed. |
