Low cost synthesis of mesoporous molecular sieve MCM-41 from wheat straw ash using CTAB as surfactant

•Wheat straw ash were used as silica source to synthesize mesoporous silica MCM-41.•Optimized the preparation of high qualified mesoporous silica from wheat straw ash.•The more ordered mesoporous silica was obtained by applying hydrothermal treatment.

Mesoporous silica MCM-41 (MS-MCM-41) was synthesized via a hydrothermal treatment using sodium silicate as a silica source extracted from wheat straw ash. The effect of aging temperature to the structure and physical properties of the mesoporous silica was discussed to provide the optimum preparation technique. The more ordered 2D hexagonal structure of mesoporous silica was obtained by applying the hydrothermal treatment procedure. With increasing the hydrothermal aging temperatures from 80 °C to 120 °C, the pore volume and average pore size enlarged accordingly and the BET surface area increased from 724 to 1312 m2/g, respectively.

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