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Updated: Jan 26, 2026

Efficient Synthesis of All-Carbon Quaternary Centers via the Conjugate Addition of Functionalized Monoorganozinc Bromides
Published on: May 26, 2019
Selective and Efficient Arsenic Recovery from Water through Quaternary Amino-Functionalized Silica
Oscar Valdés1, Adolfo Marican2, Yaneris Mirabal-Gallardo3
1Vicerrectoría de Investigación y Postgrado, Universidad Católica del Maule, 3460000 Talca, Chile. ovaldes@ucm.cl.
Abstract:
The free-radical graft polymerization of acryloxyethyl-trimethylammonium chloride onto commercial silica particles was studied experimentally for extraction of arsenic ions from water. Two steps were used to graft acryloxyethyl-trimethylammonium chloride (Q) onto the surface of nanosilica: anchoring vinyltrimethoxysilane (VTMSO) onto the surface of silica to modify it with double bonds and then grafting Q onto the surface of silica with potassium persulfate as an initiator. The products were characterized by Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR), the thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), 13C, 29Si nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and X-ray powder diffraction (XRD). The results showed that it is easy to graft Q onto the surface of silica under radical polimerization. The morphology analysis of silica and modified silica indicated that the silica decreased the size scale after modification. Q/VTMSO-SiO₂ was tested for its ability to remove arsenic from drinking water. The results show that the new silica hybrid particles efficiently remove all arsenate ions. In addition, Q/VTMSO-SiO₂ showed better sorption capacities for other metal ions (such as copper, zinc, chromium, uranium, vanadium, and lead) than a commercial water filter.
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