Synthesis of mesopore silica composite from rice husk with activated carbon from coconut shell as absorbent methyl orange color adsorbent

Abstract

The aim of this study is to synthesize mesoporous silica composites with activated carbon by utilizing rice husk waste and coconut shell as adsorbent to absorbs methyl orange dyes. Rice husk ash was hybridized with PEG into silica-PEG, then PEG was released by solvothermal extraction using DMG (dimethyl sulfoxide) as solvent to obtain mesopore silica. Composites are formed by homogenizing mesoporous silica and activated carbon with methanol. Composites were successfully synthesized based on SEM-EDX data which showed the distribution of carbon, silica and oxygen in surface morphology with content of 76.99%, 5.08% and 17.93% respectively. The results showed that the adsorption of composite adsorbent reached the adsorption capacity of 0,470 mg.g-1 in a pH 2 solution with 30 minutes of contact time. The occurrence of methyl orange adsorption is monolayer because it matches the Langmuir adsorption isotherm equation.