Structural design of a floating-magnetically responsive silica adsorbent and efficient removal of dyes

Abstract The solid-liquid separation ability of adsorbents is of great significance for improving the recovery efficiency and reducing the cost. Herein, a novel floating-magnetically responsive silica adsorbent (FMSA) was prepared and applied to the adsorption of cationic dyes from aqueous solution. FMSA with self-floating and magnetic response properties exhibited great solid-liquid separation ability and adsorption performance for cationic dyes. According to the Langmuir model, the theoretical saturated adsorption capacity of FMSA for Basic Blue 7 (BB-7) and Crystal Violet (CV) reached 1632.55 mg·g-1 and 1587.23 mg·g-1, respectively. Thermodynamic experiments manifested that the adsorption was a spontaneous endothermic process with increasing entropy. After 5 adsorption-desorption processes, FMSA's adsorption capacity for BB-7 and CV remained above 80%, indicating that it has satisfactory stability and reusability. Furthermore, the pH effect, isotherm, kinetics, ion interference experiments and characterization analysis manifested that the adsorption was mainly chemical adsorption with an ion exchange process. This research aims to bring some inspiration for the combined use of floating separation and magnetic separation to achieve more flexible, efficient and energy-saving solid-liquid separation.