GREEN SYNTHESIS OF CTAB-TEMPLATED MESOPOROUSSILICA FROM SNAKE FRUIT PEEL FOR EFFICIENT REMOVAL OF Fe AND Zn FROM LANDFILL LEACHATE
Snake fruit (Salacca zalacca) peel, an agro-industrial residue, was processed into mesoporous silica (MS) bysequential acid–alkali extraction followed by CTAB-assisted sol–gel synthesis. The product was tested as anadsorbent for Fe and Zn removal from actual landfill leachate. Acid–alkali extraction gave high-purity silica (~99.9wt%) with a yield of ~60%. CTAB templating markedly changed the textural properties: the BET surface areaincreased from ~3.3 m²/g for non-templated silica to as high as ~896 m2 /g for MSB, while the templated samplesshowed mean pore diameters of 3.9–8.8 nm and pore volumes up to ~0.96 cm3 /g. XRD indicated an amorphousmesostructure, and FTIR showed the expected Si–O–Si band near 1095 cm-1 and the Si–OH band at 3425–3441cm-1 . In leachate treatment, MS removed 79% of Fe and 87.5% of Zn. The results show that snake fruit peel canbeconverted into a high-surface-area silica adsorbent for metal-bearing leachate, linking agricultural-waste valorizationwith SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation).
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