Fabrication and modification of cellulose aerogels from Vietnamese water hyacinth for oil adsorption application

Recycling biomass to cellulose aerogel (Cell-A) provides a promising approach to develop adsorbent materials for spilled-oil recovery. In this work, Cell-A was fabricated from Vietnamese water hyacinth via crosslinking methods using PVA as a crosslinker and freeze-drying process. Various cellulose to PVA ratios were investigated to obtain the optimal synthesis condition. The Cell-A was additionally modified by dip-coating in poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) and pyrolyzing to form PDMS-coated cellulose aerogels (Cell-AP) and carbon aerogels (CA), respectively. Results of the oil adsorption tests show that pyrolysis produced aerogels with greater adsorption capacity with an optimal mass ratio of 15 : 1 cellulose to PVA. Furthermore, the pseudo-second-order model was found to be more accurate than the pseudo-first-order model for the study of oil absorption kinetics. As a result, the modified cellulose aerogel is promising for replacing earth-unfriendly polymer-based oil sorbents due to their high oil absorption capacity.