A new kind of mesoporous Fe7Co3/carbon nanocomposite and its application as magnetically separable adsorber

A new kind of magnetic mesoporous Fe7Co3/carbon nanocomposite has been successfully synthesized for the first time via a simple cocasting method. By introducing Fe7Co3 alloy nanoparticles into mesoporous carbon, the magnetic property of the nanocomposite is greatly improved compared to using a single metal Fe or Co nanoparticles, which makes the porous carbon easily separated from solution by an external magnetic field. The nanocomposite is successfully applied to magnetically separable adsorber and exhibits excellent performance of adsorption for bulk dyes due to its high surface area (up to 1429 m(2)/g) and pore volume (up to 1.93 cm(3)/g). (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.