The Use of Organophilic Bentonite in the Removal Phenol from Aqueous Solution: Effect of Preparation Techniques

Abstract

This study focuses on the investigation of the capability of surfactant-modified bentonite for removal of phenol from aqueous solution. Calcium bentonite was beneficiated by means of ion exchange method using sodium trioxocarbonate (IV) resulting into sodium exchanged bentonite (SEB) and modified using ion exchange method, impregnation method, mechanical mixing methods using quaternary hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (HDTMABr). Fourier Transform Infra-Red Spectroscopy (FTIR) technique was used to study the vibrational bands of the sodium exchanged bentonite and modified SEB respectively. The effects of contact time, pH and initial concentration were studied on SEB and surfactant-modified SEB. The result reveals that the removal of phenol using SEB and surfactant-modified bentonite has optimum pH, contact time and equilibrium adsorption capacity of 6.0, 60 mins and 22.4 mgg-1 respectively. The result further shows that the surfactant-modified bentonite produced by impregnation method gave better experimental and calculated adsorption capacities of 6.4 mgg-1 and 10.5 mgg-1 respectively. The kinetic data obtained fitted well with pseudo second-order equation with correlation coefficient (R2) value of 0.999. This study therefore recommends that surfactant-modified bentonite obtained by means of impregnation is a potential adsorbent for the removal of phenol from aqueous solution and subsequently waste water.