Abstract
Due to the increasing pollution of water resources by industrial emissions in recent years, special attention has been paid to the development of effective and affordable adsorbents. In this work, the ability of modified clay materials to remove methylene blue (MB) from aqueous solutions using it as a model contaminant was studied. Modification of the natural Pavlodar clay was carried out by interlayer grafting of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and triethanolamine (TEOA). The process included the pre-introduction of DMSO, the subsequent addition of TEOA at 180℃ with an exposure of 2 hours and drying at 60℃ for 24 hours. The obtained materials were characterized by XRD, FT-IR, elemental analysis, thermogravimetry (DTA and TGA) and specific surface area analysis (SAA) methods. Adsorption tests were carried out at a concentration of MB 50 mg/l, adsorbent doses of 0.25-2.5 g/l, and a temperature of 50℃. The modified clay showed high efficiency: up to 97% of MB was removed within the first 15 minutes, and at a dosage of 0.5 g/l, the removal rate was 85% versus 40% for natural clay. Adsorption remained high over a wide pH range, which highlights the potential of such materials for practical applications in wastewater treatment.