Toxic heavy metal ions (HMIs) released through industrial discharges continue to threaten environmental safety and human health, necessitating the development of cost-effective, sustainable, and efficient adsorbents. Within this framework, biomass-derived carbon dots (CDs) offer a promising green solution due to their facile synthesis, abundant surface functionalities, and excellent biocompatibility. However, most reported carbon dot-based adsorbents with either organic or inorganic supports, have been applied using synthetic wastewater. The studies on plant-derived CDs, their green synthesis approaches for removal of multiple HMIs from real industrial effluents is less explored. Thus, there is a dire need for low-cost, sustainable biomass derived CDs for real wastewater treatment applications. This study reports a green, sustainable, novel, and cost-effective approach for synthesizing Tinospora cordifolia-derived carbon dots (CDs@TC) via a simple combustion-microwave-assisted method and demonstrates their application in heavy metal removal from real industrial wastewater. These CDs were characterized by UV–vis, fluorescence, FT-IR, EDS, zeta potential, HR-TEM, XRD, and XPS analyses. These analyses confirmed the size of CDs@TC to be 4.09 nm and rich in oxygen- and nitrogen-containing functional groups. Adsorption experiments using ICP-OES technique revealed efficient removal of multiple heavy metal ions (HMIs), including lead (Pb) (84.06%), iron (Fe) (47.99%), copper (Cu) (74.86%), arsenic (As) (97.39%), zinc (Zn) (61.77%), and chromium (Cr) (90.50%), under optimized conditions. The adsorption mechanism involved ion exchange, surface complexation, electrostatic attraction, and physical adsorption. However, recovery remains a limitation due to the absence of magnetic or polymeric supports. This work highlights the potential of plant-derived CDs as scalable, and eco-friendly adsorbent.
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