Investigation of bamboo fibers-based aerogels using cross-link technique for spillage clean-up

In this recent research work, bamboo fibers were treated with NaOH and urea to make cross-linked aerogels demonstrating their ability to effectively segregate solvent droplets spillage in water. Bamboo fibers-based aerogels have qualities such as renewability, biodegradability, and biocompatibility, as well as other advantages like low density, large surface area and high porous character for better sorption. Bamboo was chosen as the cellulose source for this research due to the presence of higher lignin content than other cellulose sources. Hydrophobic properties of lignin make it ideal for the production of Aerogels, which absorbs solvent from water with ease. X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA) and solvent sorption capacity was used to characterize prepared aerogels. In this paper, eco-friendly and bio-degradable cross-linked aerogels are proposed for spillage clean-up applications.