Adsorption of Heavy Metals in Contaminated Water Using Zeolite Derived from Agro-Wastes and Clays: A Review

Due to climate change and anthropogenic activities such as agriculture, mining, and urbanization, water contamination has become a very real modern problem. Modern solutions such as activated carbon, reverse osmosis, and ultrafiltration, among others, have been employed in the decontamination of water. These methods are, however, expensive to set up and maintain and therefore have proved a challenge to implement in developing countries. Zeolite materials exhibit excellent structural properties, such as high ion exchange capacity, porosity, and relative surface area, which make them attractive to water decontamination processes. However, conventional zeolites are expensive, and recent research has focused on utilizing low-cost materials such as agro-wastes and clays as raw materials for the synthesis of zeolites. This review aims to discuss the role of low-cost zeolites in their removal of heavy metals and the feasibility of agro-wastes and natural clays in the synthesis of zeolites. Recent research studies based on the synthesis of zeolites from clays and agro-wastes and their application in heavy metal removal have been reviewed and discussed. Agro-wastes such as rice husk ash and sugarcane bagasse ash and layered silicate clays such as kaolinite and smectites are particularly of interest to zeolite synthesis due to their high silica to alumina ratio. Zeolites synthesized through various methods such as hydrothermal, molten salt, and microwave irradiation synthesis have been discussed with their effect on the adsorption of various heavy metals.

An efficient green protocol for the synthesis of 1,2,4,5-tetrasubstituted imidazoles in the presence of ZSM-11 zeolite as a reusable catalyst

In this study, we have synthesized a series of ZSM-11 zeolite catalysts using tetrapropyl ammonium hydroxide as a structure-directing agent through a highly efficient hydrothermal method. The series of catalysts were studied by different techniques such as FT-IR spectroscopy, XRD, FE-SEM, HR-TEM, EDS, pyridine-FT-IR spectroscopy, and BET analysis. We focused on varying reaction time intervals from 18 to 48 hours to investigate the effect on catalytic activities of the synthesized series of catalysts. The percentages of aluminum increased in the framework of zeolites with increasing crystallinity, surface area, external surface area, and acidity in the series of ZSM-11 zeolites by increasing the time from 18 to 48 h. Then, we studied the catalytic activity of a series of ZSM-11 zeolites and found that the ZSM-11 zeolite (48 h) possesses higher catalytic activity towards the synthesis of 1,2,4,5-tetrasubstituted imidazoles under solvent-free conditions. The present protocol scored well with excellent yield, short reaction time, clean reaction profiles, low catalyst loading, and no tedious workup. The catalyst (ZSM-11 zeolite 48 h) was recycled and reused in five runs without any considerable loss of activity and product yield.