Abstract
Mesoporous silica (MS) is nowadays one of the most widely used materials for the removal of contaminants in water; however, its main disadvantage is its production cost, since it is obtained by the sol-gel process using tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) as silica former, which is not an economical reagent. In this article, we propose the synthesis route of SM from industrial sodium silicate; Na2SiO3 by passing it through an ion exchange column (DOWEX-50WX8-100) to obtain silicic acid (Si(OH)4). The acid fraction is collected from the ion exchange column at pH 1–3 and allowed to age for 24 h. The SM silicate is formed from the gelation of the aged silicic acid and was characterized by infrared spectroscopy. The porosity was determined by N2 desorption adsorption isotherms and scanning electron microscopy. The Cr(3+) removal capacity was evaluated by the effect of the initial Cr(3+) concentration. Obtaining that the maximum removal capacity was 108.7 mg/g for a Cr3+ solution of 2794 ppm
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