Preparation of graphene-carboxymethyl cellulose composite aerogel and evaluation of oil absorption performance

Abstract

With graphite oxide (GO) as the main raw material, combining with carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC), hydrothermal reduction combined ice template method was used to prepare graphene/carboxymethyl cellulose composite aerogel (HGA/CMC), through drying under the environmental pressure and hydrophobic modification. The HGA/CMC was characterized through SEM, FT-IR, XPS and microcomputer controlled electronic universal testing machine, which proves the successful combination between GO and CMC and the effective hydrophobic modification. HGA/CMC can absorb pure oil because of its abundant pore structure, the adsorption capacity of oil is 70.28-172.78 g·g-1, and the higher the oil density is, the greater the oil mass can be adsorbed by aerogel per unit mass. Furthermore, HGA/CMC shows good selective adsorption capacity for floating oil on water, heavy oil on water bottom and emulsified oil in water. HGA/CMC can be recycled by mechanical extrusion, and its adsorption capacity loss is only 15% after 10 times of extrusion regeneration. It is an oily wastewater treatment material with application potential.

Keywords

• graphene
• aerogel
• ambient pressure drying
• oily sewage
• adsorption