Removal of brilliant scarlet by MCM-48 materials

Wastewater resulted from textile dyeing is an enormous pollutant around the world. Therefore, the existence of dyes, such as brilliant scarlet (BS), in the water environment, has to be removed. Mesoporous silica (MCM-48) was used to remove BS through the adsorption process. MCM-48 was hydrothermally prepared using co-surfactant of CTAB and Triton X- 100 as a template. After being synthesized, the material was washed once and twice with HCl- ethanol to remove surfactants used. Fourier Transform Infra-Red (FT-IR) and X-ray Diffraction (XRD) were methods utilized to characterize MCM-48 materials. We studied the ability of washed MCM-48 materials (washed once, MCM-48-W1 and washed twice, MCM- 48-W2) to remove BS from aqueous media with a variation of contact time, pH, and concentration. A UV-Vis Spectrophotometer was an instrument used for measuring the concentration of BS after adsorption at a wavelength of 505 nm. The adsorption isotherms of BS by washed MCM-48 materials were studied using Langmuir and Freundlich models. The result showed that the optimum time of BS by MCM-48-W1 and MCM-48-W2 was 60 min. The optimum pH adsorption of the dye by MCM-48-W1 was 6, whereas those by MCM-48- W2 was 5. The adsorption of BS by MCM-48-W1 and MCM-48-W2 obeyed the Langmuir and Freundlich models. The adsorption capacity of the former was higher than that of the later. This result showed that mesoporous materials that still had some surfactants are promising to be used as adsorbent of dye.