Abstract
Oil gelling agent serves as potential materials in the treatment of marine oil pollution. However, the reported oil gelling agents have some limitations in practical applications, such as the high cost, complex synthesis, secondary pollution, and the lack of enough storage space for the inorganic oil gelling agents. Here, a novel powdery oil gelling agent with a hierarchical porous structure was developed and used in remediating oil pollution on the water surface. Based on the three-dimensional (3D) network of cellulose nanofibrils/silicon dioxide (CNFs/SiO2), it was found that GO acted as a larger skeleton and formed a double skeleton 3D network with CNFs to successfully construct the oil gelling agent (S/GO/CNFs/SiO2, SGCS) with hierarchical porous structure and selective wettability. SGCS can efficiently solidify various oil independent of environmental factors (temperature and pH), especially the accessibility of the large pores and the capillary action of the small pores contribute to the faster solidifying of crude oil. Resulting from the photothermal conversion function of GO, it shows the ability to recovery oil from the solidified state to achieve higher economic benefits. This study overcomes to a certain extent the current limitations of oil gelling agents and will provide powerful support for the application of oil gelling agents in practical marine oil spills.
Graphical abstract
Double skeleton powdery oil gelling agent constructed by cellulose nanofibrils and graphene oxide was successfully fabricated and utilized to effectively remove marine oil spill.
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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Acknowledgments
Authors acknowledge funding by National Natural Science Foundation of China (22172149) and Taishan Scholars Foundation of Shandong Province.
Funding
This research is financially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (22172149) and Taishan Scholars Foundation of Shandong Province (tsqn202211053). This is MCTL contribution No.296.
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YS: Conceptualization, investigation, writing–original draft. BL: Resources, supervision. MW: Validation, visualization. XC: Supervision, writing–review and editing. YG: Visualization, writing–review and editing. SW: Visualization, writing–review and editing. YL: Supervision, writing–review and editing, funding acquisition.
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Movie S1: Crude oil was solidified by SGCS and removed from the seawater surface by a stainless steel mesh. (MP4 21193 KB)
Movie S2: Diesel was solidified by SGCS and removed from the water surface by a stainless steel mesh. (MP4 19134 KB)
Movie S3: Partial recovery of crude oil from solidified oil under simulated sunlight. (MP4 13411 KB)
10570_2023_5338_MOESM4_ESM.docx
SEM images of GCS and SGCS (Fig. S1). SEM images of SGCS prepared by different amounts of GO and TEOS (Fig. S2). Comparison of SGCS and SCS solidification capacity for different types of oil (Fig. S3). Photographs of different oil phases before and after solidification (Fig. S4). Stress sweep experiment of the solidified diesel and crude oil by SCS at a constant frequency (Fig. S5). Viscosity-temperature curve of crude oil (Fig. S6). The exploration of the dosage of each reagent in the preparation of SGCS (Table S1). Maximum oil solidification capacity of SGCS for different oil phases (Table S2). Comparison of solidification capability capacity with inorganic gelling agent. (Table S3). (MP4 9152 KB)
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Shen, Y., Li, B., Wu, M. et al. Double skeleton network structure constructed by cellulose nanofibrils and graphene oxide as efficient oil gelling agent. Cellulose 30, 7763–7777 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-023-05338-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-023-05338-x