Cellulose laurate ester aerogel as a novel absorbing material for removing pollutants from organic wastewater

Cellulose laurate ester (CE) aerogels were successfully prepared by regeneration of a CE tetrahydrofuran solution from ethanol followed by drying. The adsorption behavior of CE aerogels for pyridine and chlorobenzene in simulated organic wastewater was investigated through a batch static adsorption process. The effects of the contact time, initial concentration and degree of substitution (DS) on adsorption were studied in detail. The results demonstrated that the adsorption capacity of CE aerogels was highly correlated to the DS, and the maximum equilibrium adsorption capacity was determined to be 9.63 mmol/g for pyridine and 18.38 mmol/g for chlorobenzene. Due to the porous network structure of CE aerogels, the adsorption capacity for chlorobenzene of the CE aerogel was twice that of CE. Furthermore, the adsorption rate was fast, with more than 90% of the maximum equilibrium adsorption capacity achieved in 30 min. The isothermal adsorption of chlorobenzene by CE aerogels was compiled using the Langmuir isotherm model, and the kinetic adsorption was in good agreement with the Lagergren pseudo-second-order adsorption kinetics equation, which implied that cellulose laurate aerogels are promising adsorbents for the removal of pyridine and chlorobenzene from wastewater.