Synthesis and characterization of mesoporous caged silica for efficient adsorption of methylene blue from aqueous solution
Sundus Khushnood, Javaid Rabbani Khan, Sajjad Hussain, Hammad Khan, Fazal Wahab, Kim Choon Ng, Muhammad Wakil Shahzad
Abstract
Addressing the challenge of removing dyes from textile industry wastewater is crucial for wastewater treatment. Adsorption, utilizing suitable materials, emerges as a promising solution. This work introduces caged silica as an effective adsorption material for wastewater treatment in the textile industry. The proposed caged silica was synthesized via the hard template synthesis method, commonly used in various applications such as catalysts and wastewater treatment. Caged silica exhibited an amorphous structure with notable BET surface area ( 448 m 2 / g ), pore volume ( 0.325 cm 3 / g ), and average pore size ( 2.4 nm ), confirmed through detailed characterization. Evaluation of its adsorption capacity for methylene blue (MB) revealed an impressive removal efficiency of approximately 95 % within the initial 20 min. The adsorption process followed the pseudo-second-order model and adhered more closely to the Freundlich isotherm model than the Langmuir model. Additionally, the study investigates the effects of pH, percent removal efficiency, cyclic stability, and initial MB concentration on the adsorption procedure. Consequently, the synthesized caged silica stands out as a promising mesoporous material for efficiently removing MB from aqueous solutions, offering practical application potential in wastewater treatment.