Adsorptive Removal of Formaldehyde from Air using Mixed-Metal Oxides

Author

Anirudh Krishnamurthy
Harshul Thakkar
Ali A. Rownaghi, Missouri University of Science and TechnologyFollow
Fateme Rezaei, Missouri University of Science and TechnologyFollow

Abstract

Volatile organic air pollutants such as aldehyde compounds have been identified as progressively damaging chemicals impacting human health at small albeit dangerous quantities. This study focuses on evaluating the dynamic adsorption of formaldehyde over binary mixed-metal oxides (MMOs) such as ZrO₂/SiO₂ and TiO₂/SiO₂ with different metal ratios. In addition, a metal-organic framework (MOF), namely, MIL-101(Cr), was synthesized and used as a base adsorbent to which the performance of MMOs was compared. The formaldehyde dynamic adsorption capacity of the materials was determined through breakthrough experiments. Our results indicated that zirconia-based materials exhibit a comparatively higher affinity toward formaldehyde than their titania-based counterparts at very dilute concentrations. In particular, ZrO₂/SiO₂ with weight ratio of 25/75 exhibited a dynamic adsorption capacity of 2.9 mmol/g at room temperature using a formaldehyde concentration of 170 ppm_v, which was comparable to that of MIL-101(Cr). Characterization of the materials before and after formaldehyde exposure indicated that formaldehyde was chemically adsorbed on the MMOs. This study highlights the potential of MMOs for efficient abatement of airborne formaldehyde.

Recommended Citation

A. Krishnamurthy et al., "Adsorptive Removal of Formaldehyde from Air using Mixed-Metal Oxides," Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research, vol. 57, no. 38, pp. 12916 - 12925, American Chemical Society (ACS), Sep 2018.

The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.iecr.8b02962

Department(s)

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering

Comments

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF Grant CBET-1802049).

Keywords and Phrases

Adsorption; Crystalline materials; Metals; Organic chemicals; Organometallics; Titanium dioxide; Zirconia, Adsorptive removal; Air pollutants; Breakthrough experiment; Dilute concentrations; Dynamic adsorption; Formaldehyde concentrations; Metal organic framework; Mixed metal oxide, Formaldehyde

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

0888-5885

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2018 American Chemical Society (ACS), All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Sep 2018