Efficient removal of methyl orange by nanocomposite aerogel of polyethyleneimine and β-cyclodextrin grafted cellulose nanocrystals

Authors：Li, Qian^*; Li, Yujie; Li, Yuehu; Chen, Yifan; Wu, Qiang^*; Wang, Siqun

Source：Journal of Applied Polymer Science, 2021, 138(48): e51481.

DOI：10.1002/app.51481

• beta-cyclodextrin
• aerogel
• cellulose nanocrystals
• methyl orange absorption
• polyethyleneimine

Owing to the high specific surface area and lightweight, aerogels exhibit excellent adsorption capacity that can be tailored for the fabrication of high-performance environmental purification materials. Cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) is an abundant, bio-based, low-density one dimensional (1D) nanomaterials with high-respect ratio. In this work, CNC is first chemically grafted with polyethylenimine (PEI) and further by beta-cyclodextrin (beta-CD), which is subsequently crosslinked by polyacrylamide (PAM) to prepare the composted aerogel (CNC-PEI-CD/PAM), and being endowed high-adsorption capacity for methyl orange (MO) (155.93 mg g(-1)) and removal rate (97.46%). Our unique strategy overcomes the low graft efficiency of beta-CD directly onto CNC by connecting PEI. Besides, CNC-PEI-CD/PAM not only shows superior adsorption performance to methyl orange, attributing to the unique "selective" cavity structure of beta-CD and dense surface charge of PEI, but also displays the desired reusability. This material shows the huge potential in water purification.

• Institution
  浙江农林大学