Carbon Nanostructures-Silica Aerogel Composites for Adsorption of Organic Pollutants

resumo

Silica aerogels are a class of materials that can be tailored in terms of their final properties and surface chemistry. They can be synthesized with specific features to be used as adsorbents, resulting in improved performance for wastewater pollutants' removal. The purpose of this research was to investigate the effect of amino functionalization and the addition of carbon nanostructures to silica aerogels made from methyltrimethoxysilane (MTMS) on their removal capacities for various contaminants in aqueous solutions. The MTMS-based aerogels successfully removed various organic compounds and drugs, achieving adsorption capacities of 170 mg center dot g(-1) for toluene and 200 mg center dot g(-1) for xylene. For initial concentrations up to 50 mg center dot L-1, removals greater than 71% were obtained for amoxicillin, and superior to 96% for naproxen. The addition of a co-precursor containing amine groups and/or carbon nanomaterials was proven to be a valuable tool in the development of new adsorbents by altering the aerogels' properties and enhancing their adsorption capacities. Therefore, this work demonstrates the potential of these materials as an alternative to industrial sorbents due to their high and fast removal efficiency, less than 60 min for the organic compounds, towards different types of pollutants.

palavras-chave

PERSONAL CARE PRODUCTS; HEAVY-METAL IONS; AQUEOUS-SOLUTIONS; ACTIVATED CARBON; WASTE-WATER; SURFACE-CHEMISTRY; NAPROXEN REMOVAL; PENICILLIN-G; AMOXICILLIN; PHENOL

categoria

Environmental Sciences & Ecology; Toxicology

autores

Lamy-Mendes, A; Lopes, D; Girao, AV; Silva, RF; Malfait, WJ; Duraes, L

Grupos

G3 - Materiais Eletroquímicos, Interfaces e Revestimentos

Projectos

CICECO - Aveiro Institute of Materials (UIDB/50011/2020)

CICECO - Aveiro Institute of Materials (UIDP/50011/2020)

Associated Laboratory CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials (LA/P/0006/2020)

agradecimentos

Alyne Lamy-Mendes acknowledges CNPq (Brazil) for the funding of the PhD fellowship project 234184/2014-0/GDE, under the programme "Ciencia sem Fronteiras", and the COST Action AERoGELS (CA18125) for the Short-Term Scientific Mission (STSM) Grant. Ana Violeta Girao is thankful for funding by national funds (OE), through FCT-Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia, I.P., in the scope of the framework contract foreseen in the numbers 4, 5 and 6 of the article 23, of the Decree-Law 57/2016, of August 29, changed by Law 57/2017, of July 19. This work was developed within the scope of the projects CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials, UIDB/50011/2020, UIDP/50011/2020 and LA/P/0006/2020, and CIEPQPF-Chemical Process Engineering and Forest Products Research Centre projects POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006910 and UID/EQU/00102/2020, financed by national funds through FCT/MCTES (Portugal) and when appropriate co-financed by FEDER (EU) under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement. We thank Daniel Rentsch for access to the NMR spectrometer, which was funded in part by grant SNF-150638 from the Swiss National Science Foundation.