Design of a Waste Paper-Derived Chemically 'Reactive' and Durable Functional Material with Tailorable Mechanical Property Following an Ambient and Sustainable Chemical Approach

Arpita Shome; Adil M Rather; Angana Borbora; Pillalamarri Srikrishnarka; Avijit Baidya; Thalappil Pradeep; Uttam Manna

doi:10.1002/asia.202100475

Design of a Waste Paper-Derived Chemically 'Reactive' and Durable Functional Material with Tailorable Mechanical Property Following an Ambient and Sustainable Chemical Approach

Chem Asian J. 2021 Jul 19;16(14):1988-2001. doi: 10.1002/asia.202100475. Epub 2021 Jun 22.

Authors

Arpita Shome¹, Adil M Rather^{1

2}, Angana Borbora¹, Pillalamarri Srikrishnarka³, Avijit Baidya³, Thalappil Pradeep³, Uttam Manna^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ Bio-Inspired Polymeric Materials Lab, Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology-Guwahati, Kamrup, Assam, 781039, India.
² Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, 43210, USA.
³ Department of Chemistry, DST Unit of Nanoscience (DST UNS) and Thematic Unit of Excellence (TUE), Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, 600036, India.
⁴ Centre for Nanotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology-Guwahati, Kamrup, Assam, 781039, India.

PMID: 34061458
DOI: 10.1002/asia.202100475

Abstract

Controlled tailoring of mechanical property and wettability is important for designing various functional materials. The integration of these characteristics with waste materials is immensely challenging to achieve, however, it can provide sustainable solutions to combat relevant environmental pollutions and other relevant challenges. Here, the strategic conversion of discarded and valueless waste paper into functional products has been introduced following a catalyst-free chemical approach to tailor both the mechanical property and water wettability at ambient conditions for sustainable waste management and controlling the relevant environmental pollution. In the current design, the controlled and appropriate silanization of waste paper allowed to modulate both the a) porosity and b) compressive modulus of the paper-derived sponges. Further, the association of 1,4-conjugate addition reaction between amine and acrylate groups allowed to obtain an unconventional waste paper-derived chemically 'reactive' sponge. The appropriate covalent modification of the residual reactive acrylate groups with selected alkylamines at ambient conditions provided a facile basis to tailor the water wettability from moderate hydrophobicity, adhesive superhydrophobicity to non-adhesive superhydrophobicity. The embedded superhydrophobicity in the waste paper-derived sponge was capable of sustaining large physical deformations, severe physical abrasions, prolonged exposure to harsh aqueous conditions, etc. Further, the waste paper-derived, extremely water-repellent sponges and membranes were successfully extended for proof-of-concept demonstration of a practically relevant outdoor application, where the repetitive remediation of oil spillages has been demonstrated following both selective absorption (25 times) of oils and gravity-driven filtration-based (50 times) separation of oils from oil/water mixtures at different harsh aqueous scenarios.

Keywords: Waste paper; chemically reactive; facile chemistry; mechanically tailorable; tunable water wettability.

Abstract

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