Abstract
M.Tech.
In this study, ethylene vinyl acetate-fly ash (EVA-FA) composites were explored for the removal of phenols from water. The composites were prepared from EVA and untreated and acid treated fly ash via the melt-mixing technique using a rheomixer. The fly ash was characterised by X-ray fluorescence (XRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD) scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Brunauer, Emmett and Teller (BET) surface area measurement. Fly ash is composed mainly of SiO2, Al2O3, CaO and Fe2O3. Modified fly ash gave a better specific surface area of 0.4180 m2/g, while 0.0710 m2/g was obtained for unmodified fly-ash due to the disintegration of the outer layer which resulted in smaller particles, hence a larger surface area. EVA-FA composites were prepared from fly ash loadings of 3 to 20% and further characterised by XRD, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and SEM. XRD showed successful incorporation of fly ash into the EVA matrix through the appearance of fly ash diffraction peaks on the EVA-FA composite diffraction pattern. The incorporation of fly ash into the EVA matrix resulted in an improvement in the thermal stability of EVA, but did not have an effect on the melting temperature of the composites. However, a decrease in crystallisation temperature was observed. SEM micrographs revealed uniform dispersion of fly ash particles in the polymer matrix. Adsorption studies were performed using p-chlorophenol (PCP), 2,4,6-trichlorophenol (TCP) and p-nitrophenol (PNP) as model pollutants. An increase in adsorption efficiency of EVA-FA composites was observed as fly ash loading was increased from 3 to 10%. Between 10 and 20% fly-ash loading the removal efficiencies remained constant. The effect of contact time, pH and initial concentration was investigated. Polymer composites prepared from unmodified fly ash resulted in a higher adsorption capacity of phenols. The maximum uptake of PCP was 0.18 mg/g and that for TCP was 0.19 mg/g over a pH range of pH 3 to 5 and after contact time of 8 h. However, the adsorption capacity of 0.30 mg/g for PNP was achieved at pH 5 after a period of 10 h.
Equilibrium adsorption data were evaluated using Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption isotherm models. There was no significant difference in the correlation coefficients (R2) from both models for the adsorption of PCP and TCP. However, the equilibrium adsorption data for PNP were better described by the Langmuir adsorption isotherm model. The kinetics data were analysed by pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order kinetic models. The pseudo-second-order kinetics model gave better correlation coefficients (> 0.9) for the adsorption of the phenols and the amount adsorbed at equilibrium was comparable to that calculated from the pseudo-second-order equation. Desorption studies were performed using NaOH solution with varying concentrations (0.1 to 0.3 M) and the studies revealed that PNP was the most difficult to be desorbed. Approximately 75% of PNP was recovered while 82% of PCP and 84% of TCP were recovered.