Abstract
Surfactants have been used for environmental remediation to remove hydrophobic organic compounds (HOCs) in water and soil. However, there are limited studies on the use of surfactants in confined micelle arrays to remove pesticides and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from water. We studied the recovery of HOCs using two confined surfactants: nonionic Triton X-100 and cationic 3-(trimethoxysily)propyl-octadecyldimethyl-ammonium chloride (TPODAC). The micelle arrays were confined on a mesoporous silica matrix deposited onto a magnetic iron core. These magnetic, dispersible sorbents can be used to recover HOCs, minimizing the application of surfactants when compared to soil-washing techniques. The TPODAC-based sorbent had better average recovery of the HOCs studied compared to the Triton-X sorbent, and was, in general, comparable to activated carbon. It performed well with the chlorinated pesticides, in part due to additional interactions between the cationic sites and the polar compounds.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Annabelle Lee and Lydia Sannella for their assistance in dosing the sorbents and running the HPLC and UV-Vis spectrometry measurements. This material is based partially upon the work supported by the Science Mathematics and Research for Transformation (SMART) Program and the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) under Cooperative Agreement Number DBI-0830117. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF or the USEPA. This work has not been subjected to USEPA review, and no official endorsement should be inferred.
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Clark, K.K., Keller, A.A. Investigation of Two Magnetic Permanently Confined Micelle Array Sorbents Using Nonionic and Cationic Surfactants for the Removal of PAHs and Pesticides from Aqueous Media. Water Air Soil Pollut 223, 3647–3655 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-012-1138-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-012-1138-0