Nuclear chemistry

Catalysis

Adsorption

Engineering

Nanoparticle

Mesoporous material

Materials science

Methylene blue

Methylene

Acetic acid

Dimethylformamide

Solvent

Inorganic chemistry

Chemical engineering

Langmuir adsorption model

Microporous material

Physics

Nanotechnology

Organic chemistry

Astronomy

Polar

Aqueous solution

Chemistry

Photocatalysis

Specific surface area

Microporous and Mesoporous Materials

Synthesis of ZIF-8 using acetic acid (AA) as polar solvent produced uniform nanoparticles with enhanced adsorption properties for methylene blue removal. Morphology, structural properties and adsorption capacity of ZIF-8 nanoparticles were compared with ZIF-8 produced using N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) solvent. ZIF-8 (AA) formed uniform nanoparticles with average diameter of 65 nm, significantly smaller than ZIF-8 (DMF) ~ 2 μm. The textural properties of ZIF-8 (AA) showed enhanced mesoporosity consisted of large pore diameter, 2.76 nm and mesopore volume, 0.166 cc/g with moderate 500 m2/g surface area, meanwhile ZIF-8 (DMF) showed microporous structure with high surface area of ~1000 m2/g. The effect of mesoporous features in enhancing methylene blue adsorption was evident by the high adsorption capacity on the ZIF-8 (AA) in comparison to ZIF-8 (DMF). Analysis of the adsorption data has demonstrated that the adsorption of methylene blue followed the pseudo-second order kinetic and the Langmuir model.

Facile synthesis of ZIF-8 nanoparticles using polar acetic acid solvent for enhanced adsorption of methylene blue