Study on the volatile organic compounds removal with mesoporous catalysts made from solar panel

In this research, the adsorption of toluene was tested with MCM-41 and mesoporous silica materials synthesized from spent solar panel and glass. The synthesized solution was mixed with cationic cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) surfactants. The prepared adsorbents were characterized by nitrogen adsorption-desorption analysis, transmission electron microscope, scanning electron microscope - energy dispersive spectroscopy, X-ray powder diffractometer and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The results showed that the surface area, large pore volume and pore diameter could be up to 1280m
²
g
^-1
, 0.82cm
³
g
^-1
and 2.62 nm, respectively. The crystal patterns of mesoporous silica materials were similar of MCM-41 from TEM image. In this study, the effects of operation parameters, such as contact time and mixture concentration, on adsorption performance were also assessed.