In this work, new smart mesoporous amine-functionalized silica nanoparticles were prepared from hydrolyzing microgels based on N-isopropyl acrylamide-co-vinyltrimethoxysilane microgels with tetraethoxysilicate and 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane by sol-gel method. The thermal stability and Fourier transform infrared were used to determine the amine contents of the silica nanoparticles. The pH sensitivity of the synthesized silica nanoparticles in their aqueous solutions was evaluated by using dynamic light scattering (DLS) and zeta potential measurements. The porosity of the amine-functionalized silica nanoparticles was evaluated from a transmittance electron microscope and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) plot. The results have positively recommended the pH-sensitive amine-functionalized silica nanoparticles as one of the effective nano-adsorbent to remove 313 mg·g-1 of CB-R250 water pollutant.
Keywords: Coomassie blue; amino-functionalized silica; mesoporous; nano-adsorbent; nanoparticles.