Structures of nonionic surfactant modified montmorillonites and their enhanced adsorption capacities towards a cationic organic dye

Abstract This work aims to prepare and characterize novel organo-montmorillonites (OMts) using a nonionic surfactant - octylphenol polyoxyethylene ether (OP-10), and apply the materials for the removal of cationic organic dyes. The nonionic surfactant OP-10 can be successfully intercalated into the interlayer of montmorillonite and the obtained OMts still keep cation exchange capacity. The structural configuration of surfactant molecules between clay mineral layers varies from the surfactant loadings. Moreover, OMts with higher surfactant loadings have higher organic carbon content but lower specific surface area. The prepared OMts showed enhanced adsorption capacities towards cationic organic dye methylene blue (MB), and the adsorption amount increases with an increase of surfactant loading. The high adsorption capacity can be attributed to the fact that the novel OMts still keep cationic exchange capacity and OP-10 has plentiful polyoxyethylene ether chains in its molecule structure, which can capture MB molecules through hydrogen bonding. A probable mechanism for the removal of MB was proposed to be a synergistic effect of ion exchange, partition adsorption, hydrogen bonding and electrostatic interactions. Kinetic and isotherm data could be fitted with pseudo-second order model and Langmuir isotherm. The adsorption thermodynamics study has proved the spontaneous and endothermic nature of the adsorption process. The nonionic surfactant modified OMts could be promising candidate adsorbents for the removal of cationic organic dyes.