Synthesis and Characterization of Chitosan templated Mesoporous Silica: Efficient use of Mesoporous Silica in the removal of Cu(II) from Aqueous Solutions

A mesoporous silica was synthesized by annealing (3-Aminopropyl) triethoxysilane grafted chitosan at 800˚C. The mesoporous silica was characterized by the XRD (X-ray diffraction) analysis. The BET specific surface area and pore size of silica was found to be 178.42 m2/g and 4.13 nm. The mesoporous silica was then employed for the efficient remediation of aqueous solutions contaminated with Cu(II) under batch and column reactor operations. The mesoporous silica showed extremely high per cent removal of Cu(II) at wide pH range i.e., pH ~2.0 to 7.0. Relatively a fast uptake of Cu(II) was occurred and high percentage removal was obtained at initial concentrations studied from 1.0 to 15.0 mg/L. The equilibrium state sorption data were utilized for the Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption isotherm studies. Moreover, the effect of an increase in background electrolyte concentrations from 0.0001 to 0.1 mol/L NaNO3 was assessed for the uptake of Cu(II) by mesoporous silica. The equilibrium sorption was achieved within 240 min of contact and the kinetic data is best fitted to the pseudo-second-order and fractal like pseudo-second-order kinetic models. In addition, the mesoporous silica was used for dynamic studies under column reactor operations. The breakthrough curve was then used for the non-linear fitting of the Thomas equation and the loading capacity of the column for Cu(II) was estimated.