Adsorption of Phenol by Super Hydrophobic Phenol-Formaldehyde/Silica Hybrid Aerogel

Phenol-formaldehyde/silica hybrid gel with hydrophobic character, high porosity, and thesmall pore size mean was prepared via sol-gel polymerization under solvent saturated vaporatmosphere and was dried by ambient drying method. The silica sols were prepared based onTetraethoxysilane (TEOS) and Methyltrimethoxysilane (MTES) as hydrophilic and hydrophobicprecursors, respectively. Phenol-formaldehyde resin was used as organic phase to achievesuitable physical properties. The contact angle of this aerogel was about 147˚ and it is a resultof formation of CH3 groups on the pore walls. The results of FESEM and nitrogen adsorptionindicated that the structure of this aerogel is highly porous, uniform, and colloid like network.The Phenol-formaldehyde/silica hybrid aerogel was used for removal of phenol from aqueoussolution. The study was carried out as functions of contact time, pH and initial phenolconcentration. The experiments demonstrated that maximum phenol removal was obtainedat neutral pH in unbuffered condition and it takes 40 min to attain equilibrium. Langmuir,Freundlich and Temkin isotherm models were applied to fit adsorption equilibrium data. Thebest-fitted data was obtained with the Langmuir model and the adsorption capacity was 97.09mg g−1. Kinetic studies indicated that the adsorption process was described better by pseudosecond-order model.