Magnetic Mesoporous Organo-Silicate Composite for Removing Organic Dyes from Aqueous Media
Authors: Russo Nicholas , Freeman Matthew , Quach Qui , Abdel-Fattah Tarek M 
Published: February 2024

Water pollution has become a major problem for our modern ecological systems. According to the UN’s program on the environment, 80% of wastewater generated by humans goes untreated. This water contains pollutants ranging from human waste to industrial. When it eventually makes it into our waterways, it can have devastating effects on the ecosystem and potentially cause mass die off of the majority of organisms that reside there. The ones that remain are often wrought with disease and genetic mutation that can affect and destroy future generations. To make matters worse, the pollutants can remain viable and have destructive effects for years after their initial dumping. The Center for Public Integrity found that after 35,000 tons of industrial car waste was dumped onto occupied lands, the ground water was still found to be toxic 43 years later. For these reasons, cheap and effective ways of being able to remove pollutants, such as metals and dyes, is in high demand. One potential way of achieving this is using readily available adsorbent materials. Adsorbent materials can collect these pollutants, binding them, and making it easier for traditional filters to remove them from water sources [1-10]. The downside to these materials is that they are typically expensive to synthesize, have a low absorbance capacity. Magnetic Mesoporous Organo-Silicate (MMOS) Composite is a potential material that can get around these pressing issues. Mesoporous silicate has an organic function group with a high surface area. Although relatively ineffective on its own, combination with magnetic proprieties based on Fe3O4 and organic site based on cetrimonium bromide has been shown to be promising for the adsorption of water pollutants. In initial trials, the MSC composite has shown great promise in removing high concentrations of organic dyes from water sources. Additionally, this material has shown some effect in removing certain metal ions from aqueous solution. MSC was found to have a high absorbance capacity even at low dosages. Isotherm studies showed MCS was capable of removing 93% of Congo Red (CR) at high concentrations of adsorbent, while Methylene Blue (MB) showed 82% removal at high adsorbent concentrations. Adsorption was modeled using the Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models in order to both describe the equilibrium isotherm and determine isotherm constants. Adsorption modeling found that CR fits to the Langmuir Model while MB fits to the Freundlich Model. Kinetics testing determined that MCS follows a first order reaction model for CR and a zero-order reaction model for MB. Future research into this material can look at alterations to its structure that would make it more viable for metal ions.

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