Novel mesoporous organosilica nanoparticles with ferrocene group for efficient removal of contaminants from wastewater.

Traditional method to functionalize mesoporous silica nanoparticles with organic groups for removal of contaminants from wastewater was surface modification. However, this surface modification could not cover the entire surface, leading to incomplete utilization of the high surface area of MSNs. In this work, we designed and prepared a novel inorganic-organic hybrid nanomaterial: ferrocene incorporated mesoporous organosilica nanoparticles (MONs). Owing to the mesoporous structure, large surface area and the ferrocene group in the framework, MONs could adsorb phosphate anion more efficiently with adsorption capacities up to 1299 mg/g than surface modified MSNs (SiO2-Fe) (488 mg/g). Congo red (CR) and Pb2+ were also used as the model contaminants, and the results indicated that MONs is a superior absorbent comparing with ferrocene surface modified MSNs.