The effect of solvent parameters on properties of iron-based silica binary aerogels as adsorbents

Huihui Hu; Nan Chen; Wei Wei; Hui Li; Zhifeng Jiang; Yuanguo Xu; Jimin Xie

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2019.04.071

The effect of solvent parameters on properties of iron-based silica binary aerogels as adsorbents

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2019 Aug 1:549:189-200. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2019.04.071. Epub 2019 Apr 24.

Authors

Huihui Hu¹, Nan Chen¹, Wei Wei², Hui Li¹, Zhifeng Jiang³, Yuanguo Xu¹, Jimin Xie⁴

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Center of Analysis and Test, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, PR China.
² School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Center of Analysis and Test, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, PR China; School of Life Sciences, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China. Electronic address: weiwei@ujs.edu.cn.
³ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Center of Analysis and Test, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, PR China; School of Life Sciences, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
⁴ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Center of Analysis and Test, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, PR China. Electronic address: xiejm391@sohu.com.

PMID: 31035133
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2019.04.071

Abstract

The magnetic Fe₃O₄-SiO₂ binary aerogel and nonmagnetic α-Fe₂O₃-SiO₂ binary aerogels are obtained by adjusting the solvent type during the solvothermal reaction and varying the Fe/Si proportion in the sol-gel process. The microstructure, surface charge and the formation mechanism of iron-based silica binary aerogels are analyzed by SEM, zeta potential and BET. The influence of the Fe/Si proportion on the surface group and morphology of binary aerogels is also investigated by FTIR and TEM analysis. The adsorption behavior of the iron-based silica binary aerogels on the Congo Red (CR) dye is also discussed by adsorption kinetics model and adsorption isotherm model. In addition, the effects of pH and initial concentration of the solutions, adsorption time and the maximum adsorption capacities for CR of iron-based silica binary aerogels adsorbents are also discussed, respectively. Moreover, the maximum adsorption capacity of as-prepared magnetic Fe₃O₄-SiO₂ binary aerogels for dyes achieved 489.13 mg g^-1, the maximum adsorption capacity of nonmagnetic α-Fe₂O₃-SiO₂ reached 454.55 mg g^-1, respectively. Thus, the iron-based silica binary aerogels provides valuable clues for the study of other aerogel materials as adsorbents.

Keywords: Adsorption; Different solvent; Fe/Si proportion; Iron-based aerogel; Magnetic/nonmagnetic.