Hazardous dyes removal from aqueous solution over mesoporous aluminophosphate with textural porosity by adsorption

Abstract

Dye pollution in aquatic nature produce serious environmental effects. In this investigation, mesoporous aluminophosphate molecular sieve synthesized and applied for the removal of hazardous dyes Malachite green (MG) and Methylene blue (MB). In the synthesis of mesoporous aluminophosphate (AlPO4) molecular sieve, the structure-directing agent, long-chain alkylbenzene has been used as a template. The template used for the synthesis of mesoporous material is environmentally biodegradable. The mesoporous AlPO4 was synthesized by the absence of an organic base, tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide (TMAOH) which is necessary to maintain the pH for the conventional AlPO4 synthesis methods. The synthesized mesoporous AlPO4 has high thermal stability up to 1173K and large porosity nature (40nm). It was confirmed by the characterization techniques such as low-angle XRD, FT-IR, TGA and BET surface area analysis. The morphology of the material was explained by using SEM and TEM. The hazardous dyes MG and MB removal studied under the various conditions like contact time, dye concentration, temperature, pH and adsorbent dosage to examine the adsorption characteristics of the newly synthesized mesoporous AlPO4 molecular sieves.