부산대학교 도서관

Abstract: The present work is focused on an extensive comparative study of Pb (II) removal by organically tailored silica aerogels with the relevant studies. Briefly, two types of silica aerogels were synthesized using organic solvents, sol–gel method, modified aging techniques, and ambient pressure drying. The aerogels were characterized (SEM, XRD, FTIR) and investigated for Pb (II) removal from synthetic solutions and the results were extensively compared with other studies that synthesized aerogels using inorganic and expensive functionalizing/modifying agents. As per results of the comparative study, aerogel SA-Iso showed excellent removal efficiency and outperforming most of the functionalizing agents used by other studies, whereas SA-Sim showed remarkably decent results. Highest Pb (II) removal by both the aerogels was achieved in adsorbent dose experiments. At adsorbent dose of 0.1 g, pH 6, Pb (II) concentration of 10 ppm, solution volume of 100 mL, and contact time of 8 h, SA-Iso showed removal of 98.45%, which was higher than the removal achieved by functionalizing agents such as chitosan, bispyrazole, AAAPTS, thiamine, glutaraldehyde, TMCS, and hexane. On the other hand, SA-Sim removed 86.9% of Pb (II) ions which was higher than chitosan, bispyrazole, AAAPTS, and thiamine, respectively. The comparative study revealed that, under optimum conditions, such organically modified silica aerogels aged using the given aging techniques could result in an enhanced Pb (II) removal than silica aerogels modified with conventional functionalizing/modifying solvents.