Ceramic foam supported active materials for boron remediation in water

Abstract

Due to the narrowrange between boron necessities and toxicity in the environment, there is a high interest in the design of effective boron remediation procedures. We have previously reported a promising boron adsorptionmaterial based on the affinity of boron aqueous species for cis-diol groups that were anchored on differentmesoporous silica matrices.However, the small particle size of these systemsmakes themdifficult to be applied on real remediation situations. In this context we report herein a novel systemfor boron adsorption fromaqueous solutions inwhich the high boron affinity for functionalized mesoporousmaterials is combined with themechanical properties of ceramic foams as macroscopic supports. The efficiency of these new composites for boron removal is very high and comparable with the parent microparticulated adsorbent.