Adsorption performance of hydrophobic/hydrophilic silica aerogel for low concentration organic pollutant in aqueous solution

Abstract

Abstract Hydrophobic silica aerogels (SiO2(AG)) was prepared via sol-gel and solvent exchange method under ambient pressure, which could be transformed to hydrophilic after heated under 500∘C. Heat treatment cannot change its structure. SiO2(AG) samples were the micro-porous structure formed by numerous fine particles and had high specific surface area, pore size and pore volume. The absorption performance of hydrophobic/hydrophilic SiO2(AG) on nitrobenzene, phenol and methylene blue (MB) showed that hydrophobic SiO2(AG) exhibited strong adsorption capacity on slightly soluble organic compounds, while hydrophilic SiO2(AG) was much more effective on adsorbing soluble compounds, which could be analyzed by the hydrophobic and hydrophilic interaction theory between the adsorbent and adsorbate.Hydrophobic/hydrophilic SiO2(AG) adsorption performance for MB is superior to that for phenol, which could be explained via the electrostatic interaction theory.