Oil-water separation materials has attracted increasing attention due to expanding industrial oily wastewater discharge and oil spill accidents. It is a challenge to develop a low cost and highly efficient absorbent for oil-water separation. Herein, superhydrophobic nanocellulose-silica composite aerogels were fabricated via immersing the nanocellulose aerogels into a silica microsphere suspension, followed by a thermal chemical vapor deposition of methyltriethoxysilane (MTES). The as-prepared aerogels showed porous structure with high porosity (≥ 99%) and low density (≤ 10.25 mg/cm3). The deposition of silica microspheres and MTES resulted in the superhydrophobicity of the obtained composite aerogels with water contact angle up to 153.4°. The composite aerogels could selectively absorb oils from the mixture of oils and water with excellent absorption capacity (105 g/g for pump oil). Interestingly, the composite aerogels could effectively separate surfactant-stabilized water-in-oil emulsions solely by gravity, with high flux rate (maximum of 532 ± 15 L m-2 h-1) and superior separation efficiency (≥ 94.5%). Great antifouling property and reusability were also achieved for the obtained aerogels, which match well with the requirements for the oil-water emulsions separation. The simple, low cost, and environmentally friendly fabrication method in this work provided a new pathway to prepare cellulose-based materials for the highly effective separation of oils and water, exhibiting potential application in treating real polluted water.

Superhydrophobic nanocellulose-silica composite aerogels for efficient water-in-oil emulsions separation

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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