Zanoletti Alessandra, Vassura Ivano, Venturini Elisa, Monai Matteo, Montini Tiziano, Federici Stefania, Zacco Annalisa, Treccani Laura, Bontempi Elza
Chemistry for Technologies Laboratory, INSTM and Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy.
Department of Industrial Chemistry "Toso Montanari", University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
Front Chem. 2018 Mar 19;6:60. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2018.00060. eCollection 2018.
In this work a new mesoporous adsorbent material obtained from a natural, high abundant raw material and a high volume industrial by-product is presented. The material is consolidated by the gelling properties of alginate and by decomposition of sodium-bicarbonate controlled porosity at low temperatures (70-80°C) at different scale lengths. The structural, thermal, and morphological characterization shows that the material is a mesoporous organic-inorganic hybrid. The material is tested as adsorbent, showing high performances. Methylene blue, used as model pollutant, can be adsorbed and removed from aqueous solutions even at a high concentration with efficiency up to 94%. By coating the material with a 100 nm thin film of titania, good photodegradation performance (more than 20%) can be imparted. Based on embodied energy and carbon footprint of its primary production, the sustainability of the new obtained material is evaluated and quantified in respect to activated carbon as well. It is shown that the new proposed material has an embodied energy lower than one order of magnitude in respect to the one of activated carbon, which represents the gold standards. The versatility of the new material is also demonstrated in terms of its design and manufacturing possibilities In addition, this material can be printed in 3D. Finally, preliminary results about its ability to capture diesel exhaust particulate matter are reported. The sample exposed to diesel contains a large amount of carbon in its surface. At the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that hybrid porous materials are proposed as a new class of sustainable materials, produced to reduce pollutants in the wastewaters and in the atmosphere.
在这项工作中，展示了一种由天然的、高丰度原材料和大量工业副产品制得的新型介孔吸附材料。该材料通过藻酸盐的胶凝特性以及碳酸氢钠在低温（70 - 80°C）下不同尺度长度的分解来控制孔隙率而得以固结。结构、热学和形态学表征表明该材料是一种介孔有机 - 无机杂化材料。该材料作为吸附剂进行了测试，表现出高性能。用作模型污染物的亚甲基蓝即使在高浓度下也能从水溶液中被吸附去除，去除效率高达94%。通过用100 nm的二氧化钛薄膜包覆该材料，可以赋予其良好的光降解性能（超过20%）。基于其初级生产的隐含能量和碳足迹，还对新获得的材料相对于活性炭的可持续性进行了评估和量化。结果表明，相对于代表黄金标准的活性炭，新提出的材料的隐含能量低一个数量级。新材料在设计和制造可能性方面的多功能性也得到了证明。此外，这种材料可以进行3D打印。最后，报告了其捕获柴油废气颗粒物能力的初步结果。暴露于柴油中的样品表面含有大量碳。据我们所知，这是首次提出将杂化多孔材料作为一类新型可持续材料，用于减少废水和大气中的污染物。
