Synthesis, Characterization and Environmental Application of Al and Zr Doped MCM-41

Abstract

Arising out of their high surface area, tunable pore sizes, large pore volumes and ordered morphology, mesoporous silica materials exhibit wide applications in the field of adsorption, catalysis, membrane separation, pharmaceutical, fixing agent for biomolecule and semiconductor cluster, functional electronics and photonics applications etc. Ordered mesoporous silica with hexagonal structure, type Mobil Composite Material number 41 (MCM-41) is one of the most important class of mesoporous material. In the present work, we have prepared MCM-41 using cetyltrimethylammonium bromide, tetraethyl orthosilicate, ammonia and water by wet chemical method. Then Al and Zr doped MCM-41 have been prepared by introducing aluminium nitrate and zirconyl chloride salts respectively. All the samples are characterized by using XRD, FTIR, FESEM, BET Surface area measurement techniques. To study the environmental implication of the prepared adsorbents, we have carried out batch experiments for removal of fluoride ions from aqueous solution. By studying the effect of pH, effect of dose and effect of time it is observed that, Zr-MCM-41 shows highest percentage of removal of fluoride ion as compared to Al-MCM-41 and MCM-41.