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Abstract

In this study, mesoporous silica MCM-41 was functionalized with 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) to obtain MCM-41@APTES, which contains primary amine groups. In the next step, 5-bromosalicylaldehyde was refluxed with MCM-41@APTES in toluene to obtain the Schiff base-functionalized mesoporous silica material, MCM-41@APTES-BSAL. MCM-41@APTES and MCM-41@APTES-BSAL were characterized via FT-IR, FESEM-EDX, TEM, N2-adsorption-desorption, XRD, and TGA/DTA. The XRD and TEM investigations showed that MCM-41@APTES and MCM-41@APTES-BSAL were generated with extremely ordered hexagonal arrangements. The findings from the N2-adsorption–desorption analysis revealed that the average pore diameters, total pore volumes, and specific surface areas were 7.530 nm, 0.292 cm3g-1, and 155.19 m2g-1, and 12.654 nm, 0.055 cm3g-1, and 17.491 m2g-1, respectively, according to the BET plots. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA/DTA) of silica materials represented by both MCM-41@APTES and MCM-41@APTES-BSAL revealed three mass reduction steps, with the initial step involving elimination of water adsorbed via physical/chemical processes on the silica surface, a second that could be assigned to the decomposition of the organic moieties of MCM-41@APTES and MCM-41@APTES-BSAL, and a third which involved breakdown of Si-OH groups in the silica structure and their transformation into siloxane groups (Si-O-Si). The MCM-41@APTES and MCM-41@APTES-BSAL were utilized for the adsorption of heavy pollutants like cobalt and cupper ions from aqueous solution. Adsorption parameters for such uptake were determined through studying the concentration of cobalt (II) and copper (II) ions, pH, exposure time, and mass of the MCM-41@APTES and MCM-41@APTES-BSAL.

Keywords

Aqueous solution, Mesoporous material, MCM-41, Surface area, Uptake capacity

Subject Area

Chemistry

Article Type

Article

First Page

1422

Last Page

1435

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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