Super light 3D hierarchical nanocellulose aerogel foam with superior oil adsorption
Graphical abstract
Super light 3D nanocellulose aerogel foam was built and demonstrated superior oil adsorption capability.
Introduction
With the developing of the petroleum industry and chemical industry, the oil spill and chemical leakage is becoming harmful issues to the environment faced by the human being [1], [2]. Consequently, numerous approaches such as chemical dispersant, hydrocarbon degrading microorganisms, adsorption and in-situ burning are applied to deal with these issues [3], [4], [5], [6]. Among these methods, adsorption is an effective method owing to its low cost and simple operation [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12]. Therefore, to seek effective adsorbents for the oil pollution is imperatively demanded [13], [14]. Darling et al. [15] prepared sequential infiltration synthesis (SIS) functionalized porous polyurethane and polyimide foams for oil adsorption. Aerogel, as a family of ultra-lightweight as compared with metals and ceramics [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23] and 3D hierarchical porous structure material, has been intensively investigated in the applications of supercapacitors [24], [25], batteries [26], [27], catalysts [28], [29], [30], flame retardant materials [31], adsorbents [32] and electromagnetic wave absorption [33] due to the large specific surface area, high porosity, low thermal conductivity and high electrical conductivity arising from their highly interconnected network [34], [35]. As a consequence, numerous materials including carbon nanotubes (CNTs) [36], carbon nanofibers (CNFs) [37], graphene [38], and polyaniline (PANI) [39] have been employed to prepare aerogels. Even though these materials with ultra-low density (<1 mg cm−3) and ultra-high oil and organic solvent adsorption capacities [40], the high cost of raw materials and the complicated fabrication process severely restrict their applications for oil and organic solvent adsorption [41].
Cellulose is an abundant natural polysaccharide which is composed of a linear chain of several hundred to many thousands of glucose units [42]. As a green and environment-friendly renewable natural resource, cellulose plays an irreplaceable role in the daily life of human being and has gained increasing and considerable attentions for oil adsorption [43] due to the presence of van der Waals forces interaction between oil phase and cellulose and hydrophobic effect to some extent on the surface of cellulose [44]. Various cellulose from barley straw [45], filter papers [46], papermill sludge [47], and nanocellulse sponge [48] have been reported for the oil adsorption. Especially, the emerging nanocellulose-based aerogels generated from the aqueous solution are flexible and less brittle relative to the inorganic aerogels [49]. These nanocellulose aerogels exhibit promising applications in the oil adsorption since they are low cost, renewable, biodegradable and possess high adsorption capacity [50]. For example, Chin et al. [51] reported cellulose aerogels with a motor oil adsorption capacity up to 40–95 times of its weights. Sai et al. [52] prepared a bacterial cellulose aerogel (BCA) with surface treated by trimethyichlorosilane, which displayed organic solvents and oil adsorption capacities up to 185 g g−1. Nevertheless, the adsorption properties of these nanocellulose aerogels are mainly dominated by their microstructures and porosities [40]. In this case, how to control and optimize the morphologies and network structures of nanocellulose aerogels are the main challenges in designing and developing novel structures of nanocellulose aerogels and increase their oil adsorption ability. Normally, for the purpose of reducing the density and increasing the porosity of nanocellulose aerogels, surfactant alkyl polyglycoside Simulsol [53], [54], and cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB)[55] have been employed, the use of sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS) to fabricate nanocellulose aerogel has been rarely reported so far.
Herein, with the aim of handling the oil spill and chemical leakage, we developed a feasible solvent-free method to prepare a super-light 3D hierarchical nanocellulose aerogel foam (NAF) by using aqueous phase high speed mechanical foaming method with a foaming agent SDS, which exhibits an extremely high oil adsorption property compared with the nanocellulose aerogel (NA) without adding SDS. In addition, we have also provided the oil adsorption capability comparison of our as-prepared NAF/SDS with reported values of cellulose materials to show the advantage of our aerogel.
Section snippets
Materials
Cotton nanocellulose (99.6%) were provided by Guilin Qihong Technology Co. Ltd. Sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS, 92.5–100.5%) was purchased from Shanghai Macklin Biochemical Co., Ltd. Cyclohexane (≥99.5%) and ethyl acetate (≥99.5%) was obtained from Sinopharm Chemical Reagent Co., Ltd. Vacuum pump oil (highly refined mineral oil base stock with synthetic hydrocarbon oil) was supplied by Shanghai M·KO Lubrication Technology Co., Ltd. All the chemicals were used as-received without any pre-treatment.
Preparation of nanocellulose aerogel foam
Optimal nanocellulose concentration for preparation of NAF/SDS
Firstly, with the purpose of obtaining optimal nanocellulose concentration for fabricating NAF/SDS, the NA with different concentrations of cotton nanocellulose (0.2–1.0 wt%) were manufactured. The corresponding SEM images are illustrates in Figs. 2 and S1. A 3D hierarchical framework structure is obtained in all the NA samples. However, obviously, NA(0.4) sample, Fig. 2(c) and (d), possesses much larger porous structure than any other NA samples. In addition, with increasing the concentration
Conclusions
To sum up, a simple high speed mechanical foaming method is developed to fabricate a super lightweight 3D hierarchical framework green adsorbent (NAF/SDS) from natural polymer cellulose for oil adsorption. The effect of nanocellulose concentration and SDS concentration on the hierarchical nanostructures of NAF/SDS indicates that the optimal condition for construction of NAF/SDS is 0.4 wt% nanocellulose and 0.2 wt% SDS. By adopting this 3D hierarchical nanostructure, our NAF/SDS possesses a low
Acknowledgements
This work is supported by Shanghai Science and Technology Commission (14DZ2261100). The authors are grateful for the support and funding from the Foundation of National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51703165 and 51508484), and Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by CAST (YESS, No. 2016QNRC001). This project is supported by special fund of State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control (17K02ESPCT).
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These authors are contributed equally.