Superhydrophobic sodium alginate/cellulose aerogel for dye adsorption and oil–water separation

The wide application of polysaccharide-based aerogel is limited by its hydrophilicity. To solve this problem, silica nanoparticles and methyl trimethoxysilane were employed as hydrophobic modifiers to prepare the superhydrophobic sodium alginate/sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (SA/CMC) aerogel in this study. Sodium alginate (SA) and sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) were selected because of their degradability, renewability and low cost. After being modified by various routes, a three-dimensional aerogel with a density of 0.080 g/cm3, high porosity of 94% and great adsorption ability was achieved and applied for the adsorption of organic solvents which contain methylene blue and chloroform, etc. The results present that the superhydrophobic SA/CMC aerogel possesses excellent water stability, appropriate compressive strength and good adsorption capacity. Furthermore, the adsorption process is analyzed by adsorption kinetics. The remarkable adsorption performance proves that the superhydrophobic SA/CMC aerogel may have great potential of being used in the field of oil–water separation and textile dye wastewater treatment, etc.