Coating of Sulfonic Silica onto Magnetite from Marina Beach Iron sand, Semarang, Indonesia

The mineral iron oxide is the main component of sand iron that are abundant in nature. Mineral iron oxide not yet widely applied into more useful products. The main component of iron ore is magnetite. Magnetite can be used as a basic ingredient in the manufacture of magnetite-modified silica adsorbent sulfonate. In this research, the adsorbent made from sulfonic functionalized silica-coated magnetic particle has been successfully produced, with the magnetite was obtained from iron sand at Marina Beach, Semarang Indonesia. This adsorbent was then used as a metal ion preconcentration media. From the research that it was found that the sulfonic has been bound to the silica marked by the emergence of element S on EDX. Whilst, the evidence that silica has coated on the magnetite could be seen from the SEM images which showed the morphology of sulfonic functionalized silica-coated magnetic particles were larger than the sulfonic functionalized silica without magnetite. From the DSC results showed that the addition of magnetite on sulfonic functionalized silica did not change the heat resistance of the sulfonic functionalized silica. Based on the XRD patterns show that magnetite sulfonate silica was formed.