Browsing by Author "Angappan, S"

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    PublicationOpen Access
    Development of Silica-Copper Nanocomposite for Water Purification
    (SLIIT, 2022-02-11) Angappan, S; Karunaratne, M; Thambiliyagodage, C
    Water pollution is one of the serious concerns across the world at the moment. Industrial wastewater significantly contributes to the negative impacts caused by water pollution. Textile industries discharge large amounts of effluents into water streams with little or no treatment of the discharge because wastewater treatment is an expensive process. Thus, there exists a need for a cheap and effective way to treat textile effluent that contains dyes before being discharged. A high purity silica-based Nano-adsorbent was synthesized by using rice husk as the commercially available main cheap precursor. Copper-loaded silica nanoparticles were successfully functionalized with 3-aminopropyl triethoxysilane (APTES) via the sol-gel pathway to enhance the adsorption performance of organic dyes from textile effluent. The performance of produced Nano-adsorbent was evaluated by using methylene blue as waste adsorbate. As synthesized nanomaterial was characterized by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, the XRD results confirmed the presence of silicon dioxide (SiO2) and paramelaconite (Cu4O3) as predicted. The FTIR confirmed the presence of Si–O stretching, N-H bending, C–H stretching, Cu–O stretching and O–H bending vibrations thereby suggesting the presence of SiO2, NH2 groups, CH2, Cu4O3 and physisorbed H2O. The optimum conditions for pH and adsorbent dosage were successfully evaluated for the adsorption process. The optimum pH at which the nanomaterial performed best was at pH 4. The optimum mass of the adsorbent that gave maximum adsorption performance was 20 mg. Kinetic studies revealed that the experimented data was in better correlation with pseudo-second-order kinetics. The outcome of this project would be of interest to textile industries looking for a cheap and effective way to treat textile wastewater
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Effect of surfactants on morphology and textural parameters of silica nanoparticles derived from paddy husk and their efficient removal of methylene blue
    (International Conference on Innovations in Energy Engineering & Cleaner Production (IEE CP’21), 2021) Gunathilaka, H; Thambiliyagodage, C. J; Usgodaarchchi, L; Angappan, S
    Effective removal of textile dyes is important in environmental remediation especially for decontamination of wastewater. Herein, we report the synthesis of mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) from paddy husk with varying concentrations of surfactants, Cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), and Polyethyleneglycol (PEG) by sol-gel synthesis method. Ratios of the surfactants CTAB: PEG were varied as 2:0 (MSN1),1:1 (MSN2), 0:2 (MSN3). MSNs were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface area analyzer (BET), Thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA), and X-ray diffractometer. According to the SEM images, MSNs of all the combinations were aggregated with spherical and irregular shaped nanoparticles. MSNs synthesized with a 1:1 surfactant ratio showed more spherical nanoparticles. BET surface areas of MSN1, MSN2, and MSN3 are 468.35, 95.94, 177.46 m2/g, respectively. TGA curve indicated that desorption of the physisorbed water was completed at 125 °C. The effect of dye removal by the MSNs was studied on the adsorption of methylene blue (MB). Effect of dye concentration (5-30 mg/l), adsorbent dosage (5-20 mg), pH of the medium (2-10), ionic strength of the medium (0-6g/l NaCl), presence of a heavy metal (Pb2+- 0-500 mg/l) and temperature (25-55 °C) on MB adsorption was studied. At all the varied parameters, the adsorption efficiency of MB varied as MSN1> MSN3> MSN2, being similar to the trend of the surface area. The percentage of MB adsorption decreased with increasing MB concentration while it increased with increasing adsorbent dosage. The highest efficiency of MB adsorption was obtained at pH 10 and it decreased with increasing ionic strength and increasing concentration of heavy metal ions. The maximum percentage of MB adsorption resulted at 55 °C. Therefore, it can be concluded that the MSNs synthesized using only CTAB as the surfactant is an effective adsorbent in removing textile dyes from wastewater.
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    PublicationEmbargo
    Synthesis of Amine Functionalized Silica- Cu4O3 Adsorbent from Rice Husk for Efficient Removal of Crystal Violet from Aqueous Solution
    (Faculty of Humanities and Sciences,SLIIT, 2021-09-25) Usgodaarachchi, L.; Thambiliyagodage, C; Angappan, S
    Silica based Nano adsorbent (SCN) synthesized using rice husk as the raw material via sol- gel pathway. Silica nanoparticles were successfully functionalized with 3-aminopropyl triethoxysilane (APTES) via in-situ functionalization method. Synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by XRD and FT-IR. The equilibrium adsorption capacity of 0.02g of SCN to adsorb 10 mg/L crystal violet (CV) was 20.09 mg/g. The influence of pH, adsorbent dosage, and initial CV concentration on adsorption of CV to SCN were studied. The equilibrium data for CV adsorption on SCN well fitted to Freundlich model, with a Freundlich adsorption capacity of 8.23 mg g-1. The adsorption of CV could be best described by the pseudosecond order model with 0.99 linier regression coefficient.