An eco-friendly construction of superwetting alginate-based aerogels with self-cleaning performance for multifunctional water treatment

The increasingly complex oily wastewater has become a severe environmental issue worldwide, calling for the eco-friendly methods toward multifunctionality, high efficiency and sustainability. This work presents a superwetting alginate-based aerogels prepared by a feasible mineralization without the assistance of intermediates. In this strategy, in-situ grown beta-FeOOH nanoparticles on whole porous alginate aerogels, not only provides the hierarchical topography and more -OH groups, enhancing underwater oleophobicity (152 +/- 4.4(degrees)) and fouling resistance of porous aerogels, but also endows with the outstanding photo-Fenton self-cleaning ability for pollutant degradation. As a result, the outstanding separation selectivity for oil and water (>99.5 %), and superior reusability is achieved without the significant diminution of permeation ability (897-1136 L & sdot;m(-2)& sdot;h(- 1)). Furthermore, with the advantage of excellent photocatalytic performance under sunlight, the oily wastewater containing soluble organic pollutants can be remediated by simultaneous separation and photocatalysis decomposition under a gravity-driven filtration solely, revealing a promising potential for complex oily wastewater treatment with the rationally usage of sunlight.