Water Remediation by Adsorption of Phenol onto Hydrophobic Modified Clay

In this work we studied the phenol sorption from contaminated water onto modified clay mineral vermiculite and bentonite by insertion of hexadecyltrimethylammonium in the interlayer of clays. The non modified clays showed negligible interaction with phenol. The experimental data were treated using the Freunlich equation which had a good fit. The removal percentages were higher than 35% for modified vermiculite and for modified bentonite, 30%. Vermiculite and bentonite were compared for the removal of phenol from an aqueous solution based on the maximum adsorption capacity of each adsorbent, and no significant difference was found. The adsorption mechanism for both is the same, according to the results. Although, there is a lack of studies using vermiculite for this purpose, it can be concluded that hydrophobic modified vermiculite is very effective for removing phenol from water. Hydrophobic modified bentonite also remove phenol, but in lower proportions.