Design and Fabrication of Branched Polyamine Functionalized Mesoporous Silica: An Efficient Absorbent for Water Remediation

A novel branched polyamine (polyethyleneimine, PEI) functionalized mesoporous silica (MS) adsorbent is developed via a facile "grafting-to" approach. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy verified the effective surface functionalization of MS with monolayer and polymer. The transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was employed to reveal the morphology of the fabricated materials. The adsorption behavior of the polyamine functionalized mesoporous silica (MS-PEI) is assessed against anionic dyes. The adsorbent characteristics of MS-PEI are compared with a monolayer platform comprising of 3-aminopropyltriethoxy silane (APTES) functionalized mesoporous silica (MS-APTES). The adsorption behavior of the MS-PEI and MS-APTES toward anionic dyes is further evaluated by studying the effect of adsorbent dosage, pH, contact time, and temperature. Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models are employed to understand the adsorption mechanism. The obtained kinetic data support a pseudo-second-order adsorption behavior for both monolayer and polymer functionalized MS. The associated thermodynamic parameters (ΔG°, ΔH°, and ΔS°) reveal that the process of adsorption with MS-PEI is more spontaneous and energetically favored as compared to the adsorption with MS-APTES. Taken together, the novel adsorbent system derived from a combination of MS and branched polymer (MS-PEI) shows the higher absorption efficiency and capacity toward the anionic dyes than the monolayer based adsorbent (MS-APTES).