SYNTHESIS AND CHARACTERIZATION OF IRON (III) OXIDE PILLARED MONTMORILLONITE FOR CARBON CAPTURE

• Main Author: Nauval Farras R, Muhammad
• Format: Theses
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/79205
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Climate change caused by ever-increasing amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a yet to be solved problem. The world has agreed to limit the increase in the Earth's surface temperature below 2°C, as surpassing this threshold is believed to pose a significant danger to humanity. The main method to achieve this is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon capture technology plays a key role in achieving this. Numerous technologies have been developed to capture CO2, and capture by solid adsorbent is considered the most practical for large-scale adoption. Therefore, many materials have been researched for CO2 adsorption, and one of them is montmorillonite. Naturally, montmorillonites have a low adsorption capacity, necessitating treatments to enhance its CO2 absorption capability. One such approach is pillaring with metal oxides. Pillaring allows for increased specific surface area, improved porosity, and the widening of interlayer spaces within the clay, enabling greater CO2 uptake. In this study, Na-montmorillonite (NaMMT) was pillared with iron (III) oxide at various concentrations: 0.01, 0.015, 0.02, 0.025, 0.03, 0.05, and 0.075 M. Subsequently, characterization was performed, including changes in morphology, adsorption capacity testing, and structural-compositional changes of the material using XRF, XRD, FTIR, and BET-BJH. The XRD results indicate that pillaring with 0.025M and 0.075M Fe(OH)3 slightly widens the gap between the layers of NaMMT, while with 0.05 M Fe(OH)3, it narrows slightly. However, these changes are too small to explain the observed changes in the amount of CO2. From FTIR and pore distribution profile based on BET-BJH model, it was found that in NaMMT-0.05, an excess of iron (III) oxide (compared to NaMMT-0.025) forms tetrahedral layers that likely interfere with the pore formation process, resulting in a decreased amount of captured CO2 compared to NaMMT. Meanwhile, NaMMT-0.025 exhibits a pore distribution profile that supports the highest amount of CO2 absorption.