Fabrication of Carbon Aerogels from Cigarette Butts for the Oil Spills Treatment

Abstract

Recently, oil spills have been received numerous concerns all over the world because of its harmful influences for ecosystem and human being. Various techniques are introduced to manage this kind of pollution, including physical adsorption by porous materials. Carbon aerogel is one of those promising materials because of its great potential in extremely fast oil adsorption without any emission of toxic compounds. Cigarette waste is one of the most littered things around the world that can be endanger for the environment. For the first time, carbon aerogels have been successfully fabricated via a simple pyrolysis of eco-friendly cellulose acetate-based aerogels from cigarette butts waste from the tobacco factory. The prepared ultralight carbon aerogels exhibit significantly low density (36.34-50.50 mg/cm3) and high porosity (98.39-97.76 %). The aerogel has highly porous structure with irregular shaped pore in range of 10 to 100 µm. Carbon aerogels express good hydrophobicity with water contact angles more than 120(. The oil adsorption capacity of carbon aerogels is up to 14-21 times their own weight within 40 s, which is significantly higher than original cellulose-based aerogels (11-14 times their own weight). The oil adsorption of carbon aerogel follows pseudo-second order kinetics which adsorbs quickly in few seconds and reaches equilibrium in less than 60 min. In conclusion, the carbon aerogels from cigarette butt-derived cellulose acetate exhibit a great potential in the field of oil spills treatment.