Synthesis of pillared clays and their use as adsorbent

The aim of the thesis study is to synthesize clay-based, cheap and mesoporous inorganic adsorbents to remove a large dye molecule (Reactive Red-141) from the synthetic textile wastewater. The adsorbents were synthesized using microwave energy that minimizes the time and energy consumption during the synthesis. This study has original approaches in several parts: The synthesis of Al-PILC adsorbents by calcination before washing; the synthesis of Fe-PILC adsorbents in one step using microwave oven; removal of a large dye molecule, Reactive-Red-141, using clay-based adsorbents. In the first part of the study, the effects of the synthesis parameters of Al and Fe pillared bentonites on the final structure were investigated by using NMR, XRD, FTIR, thermal and nitrogen sorption analyses. By considering the results of the characterization study, one adsorbent was chosen from the type of adsorbents for the second part of the thesis, the adsorption study. In this part, the removal of Reactive Red-141 from the synthetic textile wastewater by the selected adsorbents was studied through the batch and continuous adsorption techniques. As a result of the study, it was concluded that Al-PILC-20n adsorbs more dye molecules than Fe-PILC-8c. However, the efficiency of the batch experiments was found to be more than that obtained in the column experiments. In the future studies, optimum conditions of a column study for Al-PILC-20n can be determined in detail.