Renewable 4-HIF/NaOH aerogel for efficient methylene blue removal via cation-π interaction induced electrostatic interaction

Longfei Zhang; Li Yang; Yewei Xu; Guanjun Chang

doi:10.1039/c9ra04166d

Renewable 4-HIF/NaOH aerogel for efficient methylene blue removal via cation-π interaction induced electrostatic interaction

RSC Adv. 2019 Sep 20;9(51):29772-29778. doi: 10.1039/c9ra04166d. eCollection 2019 Sep 18.

Authors

Longfei Zhang¹, Li Yang¹, Yewei Xu¹, Guanjun Chang¹

Affiliation

¹ State Key Laboratory of Environment-friendly Energy Materials, School of Material Science and Engineering, Southwest University of Science and Technology Mianyang 621010 P. R. China gjchang@mail.ustc.edu.cn.

Abstract

A novel porous organic material 4-hydroxyindole-formaldehyde/NaOH (4-HIF/NaOH) aerogel was prepared via a facile polymerization, soaking in NaOH aqueous solution and ambient drying method. 4-HIF/NaOH aerogel porous polymer networks with high surface area have been applied as efficient adsorbents to remove methylene blue from wastewater via synergistic effects of cation-π interaction induced electrostatic interaction, electrostatic interaction and π-π interaction. The adsorption capacity calculated by adsorption isotherms at 303 K was 1016.9 mg g^-1 which is higher than those observed for methylene blue on other aerogels and most other materials. Furthermore, the methylene blue loaded 4-HIF aerogel can easily be regenerated with 0.1 M HCl solution and ethanol wash, retaining over 75% of the adsorption capacity after recycling five times.