A dual-functional hydrogel for efficient water purification: Integrating solar interfacial evaporation with fenton reaction

Bowen Lv; Yanling Peng; Baogang Zhao; Yuanlu Xu; Chengwen Song; Yanming Liu; Xinfei Fan

doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2023.139310

A dual-functional hydrogel for efficient water purification: Integrating solar interfacial evaporation with fenton reaction

Chemosphere. 2023 Sep:336:139310. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2023.139310. Epub 2023 Jun 22.

Authors

Bowen Lv¹, Yanling Peng², Baogang Zhao³, Yuanlu Xu⁴, Chengwen Song², Yanming Liu⁵, Xinfei Fan⁶

Affiliations

¹ Marine Engineering College, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, 116026, China; College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, 116026, China.
² College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, 116026, China.
³ Marine Engineering College, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, 116026, China. Electronic address: zhaobg2008@163.com.
⁴ Centre for Ports and Maritime Safety, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, 116026, China.
⁵ Key Laboratory of Industrial Ecology and Environmental Engineering (Ministry of Education, China), School of Environmental Science and Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116024, China.
⁶ College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, 116026, China. Electronic address: fxf0909@dlmu.edu.cn.

PMID: 37354959
DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2023.139310

Abstract

Solar interfacial evaporation is a potential technology to produce clean water due to its simplicity and being driven by renewable clean energy, but it still requires further development to break through the bottleneck of removing volatile organic compounds (VOCs), especially in wastewater treatment. Herein, we proposed a dual-functional hydrogel evaporator that coupled solar interfacial evaporation with Fenton reaction to simultaneously remove VOCs and non-volatile pollutants from water with low energy consumption and high efficiency. The evaporator was composed with β-FeOOH and polydopamine (PDA) on an electrospun nanofibrous hydrogel. Arising from the PDA with excellent photothermal properties, the evaporator revealed a high light absorption characteristics (∼90%) and photothermal efficiency (83.4%), which ensured a favorable evaporation rate of 1.70 kg m^-2 h^-1 under one solar irradiation. More importantly, benefited from the coupled Fenton reaction, the VOCs removal rate of β-FeOOH@PDA/polyvinyl alcohol nanofibrous hydrogel (β-FeOOH@PPNH) reached 95.8%, which was 6.5 times than that of sole solar interfacial evaporation (14.8%). In addition, the evaporator exhibited an outstanding non-volatile pollutant removal capability and stable removal performance for organic pollutants over a long period of operation. The prepared β-FeOOH@PPNH evaporator provides a promising idea for simultaneous removal of non-volatile pollutants and volatile pollutants performance in long-term water purification.

Keywords: Fenton reaction; Nanofibrous hydrogel; Solar interfacial evaporation; Volatile organic compounds; Water purification..

MeSH terms

Environmental Pollutants*
Hydrogels
Physical Phenomena
Volatile Organic Compounds*
Water
Water Purification*

Substances

Hydrogels
akaganeite
Environmental Pollutants
Volatile Organic Compounds
Water