Facile and Green Synthesis of Pd-Decorated Alginate/ Nanofibrillated Cellulose Aerogel for Simultaneous Dye Degradation, Oil/Water Separation and Oil Collection

Water pollution caused by dyeing wastewater discharge, organic chemical reagent leakage and frequent oil spill incidents has aroused widespread international concern. Various methods have been proposed to remove single pollutant from wastewater. However, it is still a challenging task to develop advanced materials that can simultaneously and effectively remove various pollutants from wastewater. In this study, we successfully fabricated a novel multifunctional Pd-decorated alginate/nanofibrillated cellulose (Pd@ALG/NFC) aerogel through a facile and green in-situ reduction, followed by solution-aerogel conversion strategy. The as-prepared Pd@ALG/NFC aerogel exhibited superior catalytic activity toward methylene blue (MB) with a high degradation efficiency above 99% and excellent underwater superoleophobicity with OCA > 150° for various oils. It enabled rapid degradation of MB and efficient separation of different kinds of organic pollutants and oils from water by gravity, with an efficiency exceeding 98.3% and a water flux above 120.5 L·m − 2 ·min − 1 . Moreover, the aerogel is compressible, shape stable and recyclable. These features make the hybrid aerogel a promising candidate for multi-pollutants wastewater treatment.