Cellulose Based Responsive Materials from Agricultural and Forestry Wastes and the Application in Environmental Pollution Control
In order to speed up the structural reform of the ecological civilization and the construction of a beautiful China, which is comprehensively elaborated by the green development and the principle of ecological protection, the eco-environmental material team is committed to the research of the high value utilization of the bio-based low value materials. The preparation technology and technology of bio-based responsive materials were proposed, and the cellulose-based environment-friendly intelligent material was successfully applied to improve environmental pollution.
Cellulose based responsive materials have attracted extensive attention due to the wide sources (including agricultural wastes, such as bagasse, wheat straw, corn stalk, etc.; food processing wastes, such as peanut shells, coconut shells; cash crops, such as cotton, wood, bamboo, etc.), environmentally friendly, sensitive and responsive. At present, smart materials have been widely studied in the fields of drug delivery. Herein, our team and Professor Huining Xiao (from the University of New Brunswick Brunswick, Canada) published a paper, elaborated a new type of cellulose based responsive material, the as-prepared cellulose based responsive material had excellent porous structure with relatively uniform pore distribution, and there were a large number of independent fibers, resulting in an ideal removal ability of pollutants in wastewater (as shown in Fig. 1). The structure of the responsive materials is shown in Fig. 2. Through simulation, the adsorption capacity of Pb2+ was more than 170 mg / g, which was higher than that of the same type of adsorbent reported elsewhere, and could be recycled. This study also proposed a new idea for the preparation of cellulose-based adsorbents for water treatment. Through the application of intelligent materials on cellulose matrix, the adsorbents with intelligent, porous and large adsorption capacity were constructed. By changing the pH and temperature, the adsorption / desorption behavior of materials can be effectively changed, so that the adsorption and ion exchange process of pollutants can be controlled.
The corresponding results have been published on the Journal of Cleaner Production (Yuan Li, Dong Xie, et al., Dual responsive copolymers-grafted microfibrillated cellulose composites for removing lead ions from aqueous solution, Journal of Cleaner Production, 2020, 258, 120867. )，Dr. Yuan Li is the first author，Prof. Junjia Chen and Prof Huining Xiao are the corresponding authors, this work was supported by the special project offered by GDAS’Project of Science and Technology Development.
Fig. 1. Surface and cross-section morphology of cellulose-based responsive materials
Fig. 2. Structure of the materials and adsorption mechanism
Article link：https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.120867