Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has designed and developed a new class of high-performance silica-based nanoporous functionalized sorbent materials with molecular recognition capabilities. These novel materials are created from a combination of synthetic nanoporous silica substrates that have specifically tailored pore sizes (2 to 10 nm) and very high surface areas (~1000 m2/g) with self-assembled monolayers of well-ordered functional groups. These functionalized nanoporous materials that have high affinity and specificity for targeted free or complexed cations or anions and provide unprecedented capabilities for adsorbing and removing inorganic contaminants from surface and ground waters. Recently, we conducted extensive tests on one type of functionalized nanoporous material (thiol-Self Assembled Monolayers on Mesoporous silica – thiol-SAMMS) designed for specifically removing heavy metal species such as cadmium, silver, mercury, and lead (Cd, Ag, Hg, and Pb) from contaminated waters. The data indicated that this novel material exhibited highly favorable adsorption characteristics such as, exceptionally high metal loading (~100 – 600 mg of contaminant metal/g of sorbent), very fast kinetics (>99% adsorption in
Revised: July 22, 2010 |
Published: December 31, 2003
Citation
Mattigod S.V., R. Skaggs, and G.E. Fryxell. 2003.Removal of Heavy Metals From Contaminated Waters Using Novel Nanoporous Adsorbent Materials. In Industrial Wastes, Proceedings of the Water Environment Federation, 10, 622-631. Colchester:Portland Press. PNWD-SA-5955.