Influence of functional silanes on hydrophobicity of MCM-41 synthesized from rice husk

Mesoporous molecular sieve MCM-41 was synthesized from rice husk and rice husk ash, called RH-MCM-41 and RHA-MCM-41. The sol-gel mixtures were prepared with molar composition of 1.0 SiO2: 1.1 NaOH: 0.13 CTAB: 0.12 H2O. After calcination, the polarity of MCM-41 still remained on its surface due to the existence of some silanol groups. In this study, both RH-MCM-41 and RHA-MCM-41 were silylated with two different functional silanes trimethylchlorosilane (TMCS) and phenyldimethylchlorosilane (PDMS) in order to reduce the surface polarity. The efficiency of silylation was determined based on the amount of moisture adsorbed using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The structure of silylating agents and silica templates were found to be important parameters affecting the hydrophobic property of the MCM-41 surface. The post-grafting silylation with aliphatic silane can decrease the surface polarity better than that with aromatic silane, probably due to less sterric hindrance effect. Thus, the surface hydrophobicity of MCM-41 can be improved by the silylation of small molecular silane on RH-MCM-41.