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Preparation of Silica Gel Obtained from Early Cretaceous Sidi Aich Sands (Central Tunisia) and its Potential to Remove Pollutant Dye Anionic from Wastwaters

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Abstract

The present study concerns the elimination by retention of the anionic dye orange II (OII) from aqueous solutions was studied using a silica gel prepared from Tunisian silica sands (Barremian age). These Sidi Aich sands were collected in central Tunisia. The collected raw silica sand from the Jebel Meloussi (central Tunisia) was characterised by different techniques, such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). X-ray diffraction showed a predominance of quartz and potassic feldspars and lower amounts of kaolinite and calcite. The N2 adsorption isotherms show that these are mesoporous materials with high chemi-physical adsorption capabilities, and indicated a multilayer process for N2 absorption. They had pore diameters between 60 and 118 Å (mesoporous) and specific surface areas up to 183 m2/g, close to those reported for commercial silica gel materials. Maximum retention rates of the anionic dye orange II (OII, up to 89.73 % after 180 min contact time) were achieved with products prepared in acidic medium (pH 3). The adsorption is mechanism was well described with both Langmuir and Freundlich models, allowing for a multilayer coverage process of OII molecules on the gel surface, and the pseudo-second-order model is the most reliable for determining the order of absorption kinetics of OII by silica gel. The values of the adsorption capacities at equilibrium calculated (Qe = 242 mg / g) by the pseudo-second-order model are very close to the Qe determined experimentally (224 mg / g), and to those of an industrial silica gel (234 mg / g).

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the reviewers for their detailed comments and suggestions for the manuscript. We believe that the comments have identified important areas which required improvement. I also thank the co-authors in this manuscript and especially Samir Mefteh and Mounir Medhioub for their availability and their support during the field mission of this work (sampling). This work was supported by FCT-Grant SFRH/BPD/72398/2010 and by UID/GEO/04035/2013 project. This study was supported by funding from MEDYNA: “FP7-Marie Curie Action funded under Grant Agreement PIRSES-GA- 2013-612572”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Georessources Laboratory, CERTE, 273 - 8020, Soliman, Tunisia

    Khalil Lazaar, Samir Mefteh & Fakher Jamoussi

  2. Faculty of Sciences of Gabes, University of Gabes, 6072, Zrig, Tunisia

    Khalil Lazaar

  3. Department of Molecular Sciences and Nanosystems (DSMN), Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Scientific Campus, Via Torino 155, 30172, Venezia Mestre, VE, Italy

    Robert Pullar

  4. LABTEN Natural Water Treatment Laboratory, CERTE, 273 - 8020, Soliman, Tunisia

    Walid Hajjaji

  5. Faculty of Sciences of Sfax, University of Sfax, Soukra road Km 4, 3038, Sfax, Tunisia

    Mounir Medhioub

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  1. Khalil Lazaar
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The authors equally contributed for the preparation of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Khalil Lazaar.

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Lazaar, K., Pullar, R., Hajjaji, W. et al. Preparation of Silica Gel Obtained from Early Cretaceous Sidi Aich Sands (Central Tunisia) and its Potential to Remove Pollutant Dye Anionic from Wastwaters. Silicon 14, 2351–2362 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12633-021-01251-9

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