Abstract:
he objectives of this study are to synthesize MCM-4l adsorbent using diatomaceous earth (DE)
and to apply the synthesized material as a separation phase for environmental analysis. The DE
materials used in this study are from Lampang province in Thailand (DE-L) and Navada state in
USA (DE-U). The DE was extracted with 1, 3 and 5 M hydrochloric acid at 80?C for 2 h. The
results indicated that the extraction with 3 M hydrochloric acid gave the highest silica content.
DE-L and DE-U contained 68.90% and 97.70% silica. The crystallinity analysis showed that the
silica from DE-L was in crystalline phase while the silica from DE-U was in amorphous phase
which is able to be a raw material for MCM-4l synthesis. Thus, this study used silica from DE-U as
a silica source for MCM-41 synthesis with the molar composition of 1.0 Si02 : 1.1 NaOH: 0.13
CTAB: 0.12 Hp. Then the synthesized MCM-4l was silylated by 5% v/v Trimethylchlorosilane at
80?C for 24 h in order to reduce surface polarity. The results from the crystallinity and porosity
studies exhibited that the MCM-41 synthesized from DE-U silica possessed hexagonal structure,
which is the distinctive characteristic of MCM-41, surface area of 670 m2g-I, pore volume of 0.63
cm3g-t and pore size centered at 3.77 nm. After silylation, the crystalline structure was unchanged.
2 -I 3 -I The surface area and pore volume were increased to 969 m g and 0.71 em g ,respectively but the
pore diameter was decreased to 2.94 nm. The adsorption of gaseous benzene-on the silylated MCM-
41 was then carried out in a c.losed chamber. The silylated MCM-4l showed higher ads.orption
capacity (2.24 mg g-I) than the unsilylated one (0.09 mg g-I). The silylated MCM-41 was also
applied as a stationary phase in gas chromatography column. It could separate benzene out from the
mixture of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene but the separation performance was lower
than that of the commercial material. It was suggested that the adsorbability and separation ability
of this synthesized material should be improved further.