Ultralight and Superelastic Nanofiber Aerogels with In-Situ Loaded Polypyrrole for High-Efficient Cr(VI) Adsorption

Constructing 3-D nanomaterial-based adsorbents with good mechanical properties has attracted increasing attention. This paper reports a simple strategy to prepare ultralight and superelastic 3-D aerogels as efficient adsorbents for heavy metal Cr(VI) in wastewater by in-situ loading of polypyrrole on cellulose acetate nanofibers followed by freeze-drying method. The obtained aerogel possesses obvious 3-D porous and cross-linked structure, in which polypyrrole is uniformly coated on the nanofiber surface. Besides, the aerogel shows good mechanical properties with high compressive strength of 14.49 kPa, and can be processed into any desired shape. Especially, due to the presence of large specific surface area and high porosity, the obtained nanofiber aerogel shows significant Cr(VI) adsorption with maximum adsorption capacity of 244.65 mg/g. The present work proposes a high-quality nanofiber aerogel for efficiently adsorbing Cr(VI).