Fabrication Of Carbon Aerogels From Coir For Oil Adsorption

Coir, known as coconut fibers, are an abundant cellulosic source in Vietnam, which are mostly discarded when copra and coconut water are taken, causing environmental pollution and waste of potential biomass. In this research, carbon aerogels from chemically pretreated coir were successfully synthesized via simple sol-gel process with NaOH-urea solution, economical freeze-drying, and carbonization. The samples, including pretreated coir, coir aerogels, and carbon aerogels, are characterized using FTIR spectroscopy, SEM, XRD spectroscopy, and TGA. The carbon aerogels exhibit low density (0.034–0.047 g/cm3), high porosity (97.63–98.32 %), and comparable motor oil sorption capacity (22.71 g/g). The properties of carbon aerogels are compared with those of coir aerogels, indicating such better values than those of coir aerogels. Coir-derived carbon aerogels is a potential replacement for the hydrophobically-coated cellulose aerogels in term of treating oil spills.

Preparation and Characterization of Gaphene-Doped Carbon-Aerogel Electrode

Carbon-aerogel is a kind of nano-porous carbon material with special three-dimensional network structure. Electrode materials with high specific surface area, high porosity, superior conductivity and low density were obtained by adding graphene to prepare graphene-doped carbon-aerogels.

Synthesis of Co/CeO2 hetero-particles with abundant oxygen-vacancies supported by carbon aerogels for ORR and OER

It is highly significant for the fabrication of rechargeable metal-air battery to develop cost-efficient and high-performance electrocatalysts of bifunctionality for both oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR)....

Iron-Loaded Carbon Aerogels Derived from Bamboo Cellulose Fibers as Efficient Adsorbents for Cr(VI) Removal

A unique iron/carbon aerogel (Fe/CA) was prepared via pyrolysis using ferric nitrate and bamboo cellulose fibers as the precursors, which could be used for high-efficiency removal of toxic Cr(VI) from wastewaters. Its composition and crystalline structures were characterized by FTIR, XPS, and XRD. In SEM images, the aerogel was highly porous with abundant interconnected pores, and its carbon-fiber skeleton was evenly covered by iron particles. Such structures greatly promoted both adsorption and redox reaction of Cr(VI) and endowed Fe/CA with a superb adsorption capacity of Cr(VI) (182 mg/g) with a fast adsorption rate (only 8 min to reach adsorption equilibrium), which outperformed many other adsorbents. Furthermore, the adsorption kinetics and isotherms were also investigated. The experiment data could be much better fitted by the pseudo-second-order kinetics model with a high correlating coefficient, suggesting that the Cr(VI) adsorption of Fe/CA was a chemical adsorption process. Meanwhile, the Langmuir model was found to better describe the isotherm curves, which implied the possible monolayer adsorption mechanism. It is noteworthy that the aerogel adsorbent as a bulk material could be easily separated from the water after adsorption, showing high potential in real-world water treatment.