Robust and lightweight biofoam based on cellulose nanofibrils for high-efficient methylene blue adsorption

  • PDF / 3,293,890 Bytes
  • 16 Pages / 547.087 x 737.008 pts Page_size
  • 68 Downloads / 197 Views

DOWNLOAD

REPORT


(0123456789().,-volV) ( 01234567 89().,-volV)

ORIGINAL RESEARCH

Robust and lightweight biofoam based on cellulose nanofibrils for high-efficient methylene blue adsorption Beili Lu . Qiang Lin . Zhu Yin . Fengcai Lin . Xuerong Chen . Biao Huang

Received: 25 April 2020 / Accepted: 22 October 2020 Ó Springer Nature B.V. 2020

Abstract Robust and ultralight biofoams had been successfully prepared using readily available and biocompatible cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs) as the matrix. The c-glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane (GPTMS) was first added into the CNFs suspension to act as a crosslinker to form covalent linkages between cellulose chains. Then the gelatin was incorporated into the networks via reacting with the epoxy groups on GPTMS and forming hydrogen bonding with CNFs. The content of gelatin had a significant influence on the properties of the obtained foams. With the introduction of a small amount of gelatin, the foams exhibited significantly enhanced mechanical properties and stability in water in comparison with the CNF foams without GPTMS and/or gelatin. The foams containing the appropriate ratio of gelatin to CNFs possessed the high porosity (99.16%), ultralow density (0.0077 g/cm3), good mechanical properties, and abundant functional groups (hydroxyl and carboxylate groups). These features made it an ideal adsorbent toward methylene blue (MB) and the

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-020-03553-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. B. Lu (&)  Q. Lin  Z. Yin  F. Lin  X. Chen  B. Huang College of Material Engineering, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China e-mail: [email protected]

maximum adsorption capacity could reach up to 430.33 mg/g. Additionally, the cationic MB could be removed from the mixed cationic/anionic dye solutions with high selectivity, possibly due to the strong electrostatic interactions between MB and the adsorbent. Furthermore, the recycling test demonstrated the good reusability of this biofoam. Therefore, this work provides an environmentally benign method to fabricate robust CNF-based foams, which can be considered as green adsorbents for the treatment of water pollutants. Keywords Biofoam  Cellulose nanofibrils  Lightweight  Gelatin  MB adsorption

Introduction Foam has emerged as one of the promising macroporous materials for application as thermal insulation materials (An et al. 2015), packaging materials (Bernardini et al. 2015), crash protection materials (Cui et al. 2009), adsorbents (Kong et al. 2016) and so on. The petroleum-based polymeric foams such as polyurethane (PU) foams are widely used for their convenience, low price, and excellent performance (Bernardini et al. 2015). However, the petroleumbased foams are not biodegradable and will cause environmental pollution after using them. Therefore, the development of eco-friendly foams based on

123

Cellulose

renewable resources is highly desired. In recent years, increasing attention has be