Adsorption of two β-blocker pollutants on modified montmorillonite with environment-friendly cationic surfactant containing amide group: Batch adsorption experiments and Multiwfn wave function analysis

Hongling Zhang; Jianzhe Ma; Mingxing Shi; Mingzhu Xia; Fengyun Wang; Chenlu Fu

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2021.01.077

Adsorption of two β-blocker pollutants on modified montmorillonite with environment-friendly cationic surfactant containing amide group: Batch adsorption experiments and Multiwfn wave function analysis

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2021 May 15:590:601-613. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.01.077. Epub 2021 Feb 1.

Authors

Hongling Zhang¹, Jianzhe Ma², Mingxing Shi², Mingzhu Xia³, Fengyun Wang⁴, Chenlu Fu²

Affiliations

¹ Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences, Nanjing 210042, China. Electronic address: 68581127@qq.com.
² School of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China.
³ School of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China. Electronic address: xiamzh196808@njust.edu.cn.
⁴ School of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China. Electronic address: wangfy@njust.edu.cn.

PMID: 33582363
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.01.077

Abstract

The novel environment-friendly hexadecanoamide propyltrimethy lammonium chloride (NQAS16-3) surfactant with different amounts (0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0, 1.2 CEC) was firstly used to modify montmorillonite, and the obtained organomontmorillonite (N-Mt) with the amount of surfactant equal to 1.0 CEC was utilized to adsorb two β-blocker pollutants- Atenolol (ATE) and acebutolol (ACE). The experimental results indicated that the equilibrium adsorption capacity of N-Mt(the organo-montmorillonite that the amount of modifier was 1.0 CEC) for ATE and ACE was 93.47 mg/g and 84.55 mg/g, respectively, which was more than twice that of raw montmorillonite for two pollutants, the adsorption was better fitted with the pseudo-second-order model and Langmuir isotherms model, and the adsorption was the spontaneous and exothermic process. Moreover, combining with the Zeta potential values of N-Mt, and with the help of Multiwfn wave function program based on density functional theory (DFT), the electrostatic interaction and the hydrophobic partitioning between N-Mt and two pollutant molecules were verified, p-π/π interaction between NQAS16-3 and ATE (or ACE) may be contributed to the increasing adsorption capacity of N-Mt for two β-blocker pollutants. The work provided novel organomontmorillonite for the removal of non-degradable β-blocker pollutants and the insight of the adsorption mechanism from the atomic level.

Keywords: Adsorption; Mechanism; Multiwfn; Organo-montmorillonite; β-blocker pollutants.