Synthesis And Surface Modification of Cellulose Aerogel from Coconut Peat for Oil Adsorption

Abstract Oil spillage is one of the world’s biggest environmental problems, its various impacts including shifting the balance of the ecosystem, affecting marine animals, and inhibiting economical activities. Therefore, the efficient resolution of this issue is a topic of great interest. In this work, the solution of choice is an adsorption method using aerogels made from coconut peat. Cellulose coconut peat aerogels (CCPA) are synthesized by cross-linking method with poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and freeze-drying technique to form the porous structure. The CCPA are furthermore dip-coated in poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) to obtain PDMS-coated cellulose coconut peat aerogel (CCPA-P) with hydrophobic properties for the studying of oil adsorption. The characteristics of CCPA and CCPA-P are evaluated by density and porosity, specific surface area following Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) theory, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX), and water contact angle (WCA) measurements. Results showed that CCPA-10 with the mass ratios of cellulose to PVA 10:1 had the lowest density of 28.21 mg/cm3, highest porosity of 98.15 %. Furthermore, the modified CCPA-P10 had maximum adsorption capacity of up to 2.083 and 2.452 mg/mg for the static adsorption model and dynamic adsorption model, respectively. This indicates that coconut peat is a viable material for aerogel synthesis in oil adsorption applications.