New Organo-Inorganic Materials for Water contaminantes remediation.

Materials with high specific surface areas such as pillared clays and zeolites have been studied and can be used to remediate contaminated water. Chemical functionality or compounds can be anchored or attached to the surface of a low-cost material used as a support matrix. This work studied the suitability of inexpensive natural mineral soils to decontaminate waste water from mine and metallurgic industries. Native mineral soils were also impregnated with commercial 1,3 diphenyltiourea (DFT) to improve retention of heavy metal ions. The natural mineral soils were from Hidalgo State in Mexico: white marble (calcite: CaCO3), volcanic gravels named ?red and black tezontles? (anorthite matrix: CaO.Al2O3.(SiO2)2 with FexOy and PbxOy), green zeolites (mordenite: Na2CaK2. OAl2O3.10SiO2.7H2O) and kaolin (kaolinite: Al2O3(SiO2)2.H2O). They were ground and sieved. The 50 mesh fraction was studied by Raman and FTIR spectroscopy, X ray powder diffraction and scanning electronic microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDX). From these solids new hybrid materials were prepared by impregnation with DFT in ethanolic solutions. Products were characterized and compared with untreated materials. Tezontles, zeolites and kaolinite showed the best impregnation levels. In their surfaces, grown DFT crystals showed different structures. The obtained hybrid solids were tested using several metallic ion solutions: Mn(II), Ni(II), Co(II), Cd(II), Hg(II), Pb(II), Cu(II) and Zn(II). The metallic adducts were analyzed and the adsorption capacity is discussed. The materials showed high remotion percentages for all metal ions and low Hg(II), Pb(II) and Cd(II) final concentrations. They have good potential for use in remediation of contaminated water with highly toxic metal ions. The metallic adducts were characterized by FTIR and Raman spectroscopy, as well as SEM/EDX analysis. However, all of mentioned methods were not useful for detection of impregnated DFT nor adsorbed or coordinated metallic ions on the supporting materials. Only the SEM/EDX method was found to be suitable for analysis.