Abstract

Oily wastewater and solid wastes such as waterworks sludge (WS) and waste paper (WP) are usually treated separately. With the continuous promotion of the concept of waste-control-waste, the exploration of the collaborative treatment is worth considering. To address this gap, herein, a green and scalable strategy was developed to fabricate a hierarchical porous waterworks sludge and waste paper-based cellulose aerogel (WS0.6/WPC aerogel) with inverse beetles-like structure for enhanced and rapid oily wastewater treatment. Low-cost raw material and facile fabrication process allowed large-scale application of WS0.6/WPC aerogel. Significantly, underwater superoleophobic background composed of WS and WPC and hydrophobic bumps constructed of acrylic resin formed an inverse beetles-like structure. During emulsion separation, besides the high pore tortuosity of as-designed aerogel, the special hydrophobic bumps could capture and aggregate oil droplets, thus enhancing the interception ability of the aerogel, resulting in desirable separation efficiency for both immiscible oil/water mixtures and surfactant-stabilized oil-in-water emulsions with high fluxes. Therefore, this work provides insights for the exploration of wastes-based advanced membranes for efficient and rapid oily wastewater remediation, as well as recycling and utilization of solid wastes.

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