Insights into the competitive adsorption of pollutants on a mesoporous alumina-silica nano-sorbent synthesized from coal fly ash and a waste aluminium foil.

ABSTRACT: A highly efficient and low-cost alumina-silica nano-sorbent was fabricated and characterized to understand the key factors responsible for its superiority over the existing adsorbents in treating the industry-discharged wastewater for the removal of dyes and heavy metals. As compared to the properties of raw fly ash, the following fundamental improvements were observed for the alumina-silica nano-sorbent: (a) transformation of throttled mesopores into slit-type pores, (b) increment in the surface area by 65-fold, (c) change in the morphology from spherical particles to a flake-type structure with sharp edges, (d) reduction in the average crystal size from 61.143 to 27.176 nm, and (e) increase in the pore volume from 0.005 to 0.50 cm³ g^-1. These desired properties of t

SUBMITTER: Chatterjee A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9052400 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature