Preparation of silica aerogel with the adsorption of organic pollutants capacity

Articles in Press

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Yazd University, Department of Chemical and Polymer Engineering

10.22034/ijche.2023.402619.1326

Abstract

Silica aerogels can be used as adsorbents to remove organic pollutants due to their porous microstructure and outstanding properties such as low density and high porosity. However, their application is limited due to the high cost of production. Therefore, it is recommended to use the inexpensive precursor of glass water and the low-cost ambient pressure drying. In this study, the hydrophobic mesoporous silica aerogel was prepared by water glass (WG) and methyltriethoxysilane (MTES) co-precursor with molar ratio of MTES / WG = 1.5 through the sol-gel method followed by pressure drying which used as an adsorbent. The results showed that the optimal conditions of pH = 8.5, two-stage aging, sodium ion washing, and most importantly, the use of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide as a surfactant led to the preparation of an aerogel with outstanding properties such as a low density (0.102 g/cm3), high contact angle (140◦), porosity (95%), high specific area (1588 m2/g) , and the average pore size of 5.7 nm. The absorption capacities of aerogels was measured in 5 different solvents: gasoline, oil, hexane, toluene and ethanol. By comparing the absorption rate of the prepared aerogel with an activated carbon, it was observed that the desired aerogel absorbed oil about 20 times, gasoline about 5.9 times, toluene about 4.4 times, and hexane about 2.7 times more than activated carbon

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Iranian Chemical Engineering Journal

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 24 December 2023

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