Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, Vol.56, No.11, 2943-2957, 2017
Single-Step Room-Temperature in Situ Syntheses of Sulfonic Acid Functionalized SBA-16 with Ordered Large Pores: Potential Applications in Dye Adsorption and Heterogeneous Catalysis
A single-step in situ synthetic method of sulfonic acid functionalized SBA-16 material with ordered large pores has, been fabricated involving ammonium fluoride (NH4F), tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS) in heptane, and 3-mercaptopropyltrimethoxysilane (MPTMS) in the presence of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and Pluronic F127 (block copolymer) under mild acidic condition at room temperature. Due to the presence of numerous sulfonic acid groups on the surface, these materials show proficient adsorption capacities for dyes (q(m) = 365.46 mg g(-1) for fuchsine basic, FB; q(m) = 217.87 mg g(-1) for rhodamine 6G, R6G). Pseudo-second-order and intraparticle diffusion kinetics model as well as Langmuir isotherm model provided the best correlation with the obtained kinetic and isotherm data, respectively. Besides this) these materials prove to be efficient heterogeneous catalysts and show great catalytic activity toward Beckmann rearrangement of some oximes and esterification reaction. Moreover, these can be well regenerated in dilute acid solution and reused several times without causing any serious decrease of their adsorption capacity and catalytic activity. Finally, this work opens up a new vista of research in the direction of water treatment applications and in one-step in situ generation of solid acid catalyst at room temperature.