Fabrication of polyaniline/poly(vinyl alcohol)/montmorillonite hybrid aerogels toward efficient adsorption of organic dye pollutants

Wei Lyu; Jiaqiang Li; Miroslava Trchová; Guang Wang; Yaozu Liao; Patrycja Bober; Jaroslav Stejskal

doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2022.129004

Fabrication of polyaniline/poly(vinyl alcohol)/montmorillonite hybrid aerogels toward efficient adsorption of organic dye pollutants

J Hazard Mater. 2022 Aug 5:435:129004. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2022.129004. Epub 2022 Apr 25.

Authors

Wei Lyu¹, Jiaqiang Li², Miroslava Trchová³, Guang Wang⁴, Yaozu Liao², Patrycja Bober⁵, Jaroslav Stejskal⁶

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials & College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China; Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, Czech Academy of Sciences, 162 06 Prague 6, Czech Republic. Electronic address: wlyu@dhu.edu.cn.
² State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials & College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China.
³ Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, Czech Academy of Sciences, 162 06 Prague 6, Czech Republic; University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague, 166 28 Prague 6, Czech Republic.
⁴ Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049, Beijing, China; Spallation Neutron Source Science Centre, 523803 Dongguan, China.
⁵ Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, Czech Academy of Sciences, 162 06 Prague 6, Czech Republic. Electronic address: bober@imc.cas.cz.
⁶ Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, Czech Academy of Sciences, 162 06 Prague 6, Czech Republic. Electronic address: stejskal@imc.cas.cz.

PMID: 35500341
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2022.129004

Abstract

Fabrication of adsorbents with excellent adsorption capacity, outstanding stability, easy separation ability, excellent recyclability and widely generality for organic dyes removal from wastewater remains challenging. Herein, three-dimensional polyaniline/poly(vinyl alcohol)/montmorillonite (PANI/PVAL/MMT) hybrid aerogels with easy separation performance and highly effective reusable adsorption on both anionic and cationic dyes were fabricated by a simple in-situ polymerization method. As-prepared hybrid aerogels were characterized via infrared and Raman spectra, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectra mapping, small and wide-angle X-ray scattering, thermogravimetric analysis, mercury intrusion porosimetry and elemental analysis. The results showed that MMT particles were successfully incorporated into aerogel matrix. Well-defined hierarchical structure, where PANI nanofibers are coated on the skeleton wall, can be observed for PANI/PVAL/MMT when the incorporation amount of MMT was around 11.1 wt%. The adsorption performance of as-prepared hybrid aerogels on both anionic and cationic dyes was systemically carried out at different solution pH, adsorbent dosage and initial dye concentration. The data analysis showed that the adsorption process for PVAL/PANI/MMT aerogel for Reactive Black 5, methyl orange and safranin followed Freundlich isotherm and the maximum experimental adsorption capacities were found to be 199, 251 and 57.0 mg g^-1 at 25 °C, respectively. Mechanism studies indicated that the electrostatic interaction is the main driving force for the adsorption of dyes. The results demonstrated that the fabricated hybrid aerogel is an efficient adsorbent for the removal of both anionic and cationic organic dyes.

Keywords: Aerogel; Dye adsorption; Montmorillonite; Poly(vinyl alcohol); Polyaniline.