Carbon fiber paper@MgO films: in situ fabrication and high-performance removal capacity for phosphate anions.

Porous magnesium oxide (MgO) films on carbon fiber paper (CF) have been successfully fabricated in a hydrothermal route at different calcination temperatures. The CF@MgO samples (CF@MgO-300, -400, and -500) show different morphologies with the increasing surface area from 3 for CF to 27 m ²  g ^-1 for CF@MgO-400. Among the four investigated samples, the CF@MgO-400 exhibits the highest phosphate removal ability (~ 1230 mg g ^-1 ) with promising applications for the large-scale utilization at low cost.