Abstract
Neodymium was incorporated into the three-dimensional mesoporous siliceous material TUD-1. In order to understand the chemical and morphological structure of the prepared material, several characterization techniques were performed. The characterization results show the formation of highly distributed isolated Nd3+ ions incorporated in the silica matrix in tetrahedrally coordinated structure, moreover no aggregation of separate phase(s) was/were observed. The prepared material was investigated as an adsorbent for methyl green (MG) dye in aqueous solution as a model cationic dye. The results show higher adsorption capacity for Nd-TUD-1 by almost 24 times higher than the neat parent TUD-1 material and more than 100 times higher than bulky Nd2O3 under neutral pH. The adsorption results were fitted perfectly with pseudo-second-order model. Moreover, the adsorption isotherms were perfectly fitted with Freundlich isotherm model which indicates the formation of a multilayer of the dye molecules onto the Nd-TUD-1 surface as a physisorption with endothermic nature.
Nd3+ ions were incorporated into TUD-1 mesoporous silica and the resultant material was applied as an adsorbent for methyl green dye. Nd-TUD-1 exhibits 24 times higher adsorption capacity than neat TUD-1 and more than 100 times than bulky Nd2O3. [Display omitted]
•Nd3+ ions were incorporated into TUD-1 silica for the first time.•Nd-TUD-1 was applied as an adsorbent for cationic dye.•Nd-TUD-1 shows 24 times higher adsorption capacity than neat TUD-1•Nd-TUD-1 exhibits > 100 times higher adsorption capacity than bulky Nd2O3.