The
emission of NH3 into atmosphere is seriously harmful
for human health and public safety, thus the capture and recovery
of NH3 from ammonia emissions is highly desirable. In recent
years, many kinds of solid adsorbents have been exploited to absorb
NH3. However, these materials do not show the advantages
of high uptake capacity and good recyclability at the same time. Here,
nontoxic and low cost few-layer BiI3 nanosheets have been
prepared from bulk BiI3 powder by a simple and efficient
liquid phase exfoliation strategy using green solvents and then applied
for the NH3 capture for the first time. The results show
that the adsorption capacity of NH3 of BiI3 nanosheets
reaches up to 22.6 mmol/g at 1.0 bar and 25 °C, which approaches
the record value for NH3 adsorption. Importantly, the NH3 uptake in BiI3 nanosheets is completely reversible
and no clear loss in uptake capacity is observed after 10 cycles of
adsorption–desorption. Furthermore, the BiI3 nanosheets
exhibit remarkable selectivity for the separation of NH3/CO2 at 70 °C with theoretical selectivity coefficient
of 700, which is promising for the selective separation of NH3 and CO2 in hot tail gas of some industrial processes.
Mechanism studies indicate that such superior NH3 capacity,
excellent reversibility and remarkable selectivity are primarily attributed
to the Bi3+-NH3 coordination interactions.