Preparation of Micro- and Mesoporous Aluminosilicates in the Presence of Polyethylene Glycol

Abstract

Natural and synthetic aluminosilicates currently have a wide application range. Silicon-containing wastes of rice production are of great interest as a source of raw materials for aluminosilicate production. The purpose of this work was the template synthesis of micro- and mesoporous materials from rice husk using PEG-6000. The prepared samples were characterized by differential thermal analysis (DTA) and IR spectroscopy, which showed the incorporation of PEG into the potassium aluminosilicate structure during the sol–gel process. The specific surface areas S_sp of the prepared samples and their pore-size distributions were determined by low-temperature nitrogen adsorption, which showed that the pore radius increased from 100 to 200 Å when the PEG concentration in sol–gel synthesis changed from 5 to 20 mmol/L. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed that the template changed the surface morphology of the samples and promoted their structuring.