A significant improvement in adsorption behavior of mesoporous TUD-1 silica through neodymium incorporation

Neodymium was incorporated into the three-dimensional mesoporous siliceous material TUD-1. In order to understand the chemical and morphological structure of the prepared material, several characterization techniques were performed. The characterization results show the formation of highly distributed isolated Nd3+ ions incorporated in the silica matrix in tetrahedrally coordinated structure, moreover no aggregation of separate phase(s) was/were observed. The prepared material was investigated as an adsorbent for methyl green (MG) dye in aqueous solution as a model cationic dye. The results show higher adsorption capacity for Nd-TUD-1 by almost 24 times higher than the neat parent TUD-1 material and more than 100 times higher than bulky Nd2O3 under neutral pH. The adsorption results were fitted perfectly with pseudo-second-order model. Moreover, the adsorption isotherms were perfectly fitted with Freundlich isotherm model which indicates the formation of a multilayer of the dye molecules onto the Nd-TUD-1 surface as a physisorption with endothermic nature. (C) 2020 Chinese Society of Rare Earths. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Neodymium was incorporated into three-dimensional mesoporous siliceous material TUD-1, forming highly distributed Nd3+ ions in the silica matrix. The adsorption capacity of Nd-TUD-1 for methyl green dye was over 24 times higher than neat TUD-1 material, fitting perfectly with pseudo-second-order model.