Partially carbonized wastepaper with excellent mechanical strength for oil-water and emulsion separation

Abstract

Background Taking the treatment of oily sewage and the recycling of wastepaper as the starting point, the idea of using waste to treat waste was used to treat the swage with aerogels made of wastepaper.

Methods Porous ultralight Fe-functionalized cellulose carbon aerogels (CPFe) were synthesized using wastepaper as raw material through FeCl3 impregnation and low-temperature carbonization.

Findings CPFe aerogels exhibit excellent physicochemical properties, such as: low density (0.0284 g/cm3), high porosity (97.32%), and selective absorption capacity for various oil products. The absorption capacity of chloroform reached 62.8 g/g. In addition, it exhibits excellent capacity in emulsion separation for both o/w and w/o types. Droplet size of w/o emulsion reduced by two orders of magnitude. CPFe aerogel is a low-cost, renewable, environmentally friendly material and suitable for large-scale production. It is expected to have broad applications in pollution remediation.