Biodegradable lignocellulosic porous materials: Fabrication, characterization and its application in water processing

Abstract

Biodegradable porous materials based on natural lignocellulosic biomass have multiple advantages of low cost, lightweight, non-toxicity, and the potential in place of non-biodegradable petrochemical products. However, the fabrication process for the porous materials was complicated by the slow and costly prefreeze or supercritical drying methods. Herein, a facile and green/clean strategy was presented to fabricate corncob and willow wood porous materials in ambient conditions. The effect of biomass solution concentration and preparation condition on porous material morphology structure was investigated systematically by scanning electron microscope (SEM). Further, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), Brunauer-Emmet-Teller (BET) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) were used to estimate the structure and thermostability of the porous materials. Furthermore, the adsorptive properties of the biomass porous materials towards dye methylene blue and oil were evaluated. The biomass porous materials with a fluffy and porous structure were readily obtained via this procedure and showed effective adsorption capacity for dye methylene blue and oil.

Keywords: Biodegradable porous material; Lignocellulosic biomass; Morphology; Water processing.