Pillared clay (PILC) was prepared from Moroccan clay and characterized, and its aqueous thymol adsorption capacities were studied using a batch equilibrium technique. So, we tested the encapsulation of thymol by aluminum pillared clay (PILC). The PILCs displayed a total surface area of 270 m2/g, a total pore volume of 0.246 cm3/g and an average pore diameter of 8.9 Å, which corresponds to the size of Al13 forming the pillars between the clay layers. The adsorption capacity shown by the PILCs for thymol from water is close to 319 mg∙g−1 for low solid/liquid ratio (0.2%). This result suggests that the PILCs have both hydrophobic and hydrophilic characteristics, as a result of the presence of silanol and siloxane groups formed during the pillaring and calcination of the PILCs. The experimental data were analyzed by the Freundlich and the Langmuir isotherm types for low values of equilibrium concentration. The rise of the isotherm in this range of concentrations was related to the affinity of thymol for clay sites, and the equilibrium data fitted well with the Freundlich model with maximum adsorption capacity of 319.51 mg/g for a ratio RS/L = 0.2%. Pseudo-first and pseudo-second-order kinetic models were tested with the experimental data and pseudo-first order kinetics was the best for the adsorption of thymol with coefficients of correlation R² ≥0.986, and the adsorption was rapid with 90% of the thymol adsorbed within the first 20 min.
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