Synthesis and Characterization of Amorphous SiO₂-Fe_xO_y Materials Starting from Iron Sulfate for Preliminary Studies of CO₂ Adsorption

The goal of this work is to investigate the effectiveness of amorphous SiO2-FexOy loaded by functionalization with Ce(SO4)(2), Li2SO4, and 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) for CO2 adsorption. Silica and iron-based materials are gaining popularity due to their wide range of applications, such as catalysis, photocatalysis, imaging, etc.; however, there are very few studies regarding the adsorption of CO2 with the aforementioned materials. In our study, we proposed to test their ability in this direction by adding cerium sulfate and lithium sulfate. Three base materials were obtained and characterized using XRD, FTIR, RAMAN, TG, SEM, and BET followed by their functionalization with amino groups by using of the APTES precursor. The SEM images indicate an increase in size, forming clusters from 100 nm for base materials to 500 nm for functionalized materials. The results indicate a maximum CO2 adsorption of 1.58 mmol/g material for the SiO2-FexOy-Li-APTES sample.