Thermal analysis applied for the removal of surfactant from mesoporous molecular sieves MCM-41 synthesized from gold mine tailings slurry

The aim of the current study is to obtain the thermal behavior and kinetic analyses of the removal of surfactant from MCM-41 synthesized from tailings slurry at different heating rates. X-ray diffraction and thermogravimetric analyses were carried out to determine the characterization of the synthesized samples. Kissinger–Akahira–Sunose and Friedman isoconversional kinetic methods were applied for the purpose of determining the kinetic analysis parameters of the decomposition of surfactant from the mesoporous molecular sieves MCM-41 under non-isothermal conditions. For the comparison of these results, MCM-41 was synthesized from a pure silica source. The thermal behaviors of MCM-41 synthesized from tailings slurry do not differ from samples synthesized from pure silica during the decomposition reactions. The kinetic analysis’ results indicate that the decomposition reactions of the synthesized MCM-41 samples had complex reaction mechanisms.