Preliminary study on the synthesis of granular ordered mesoporous carbon-montmorillonite composite adsorbents for removal of water pollutants

Abstract

In this preliminary work, ordered mesoporous carbon-montmorillonite (OMC-M) composite granules were synthesised and tested for the removal of methylene blue and methyl red. The synthesised OMC-M composite granules were characterised using a scanning electron microscope (SEM), an energy dispersive x-ray spectroscope (EDX), and a Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface analyser. The OMC-M composite granules were bound using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as a binding agent. The swelling/burst effect of the composite granules in distilled water was investigated using different PVA concentrations, ranging from 1% to 5% (w/v) at different observation times of up to 24 hours. The results indicated that there were no significant changes on the average area (1.85 mm) of the OMC-M composite granules when the PVA binder concentration was increased. OMC-M composite granules with 5% (w/v) PVA displayed removal efficiency of 85% and 65% for methylene blue and methyl red, respectively. The results of this study suggested the potential of applying OMC-M composite granules for the removal of various pollutants from an aqueous solution.