Thiol-rich, porous carbon for the efficient capture of silver: Understanding the relationship between the surface groups and transformation pathways of silver

The selective capture of silver ions (Ag+) from wastewater is promising for simultaneous water purification and resource recovery but remains challenging. In this work, an adsorbent obtained by grafting sulfhydryl (SH) groups onto activated carbon (AC) from discarded cigarette butts and heated at 80 °C (AC-SH-80) was designed for Ag+ removal and exhibited a high capacity (719.2 mg/g) and remarkable selectivity. For the first time, we report that...