Highly efficient solar-light-driven self-floatable WO2.72@Fe3O4 immobilized cellulose nanofiber aerogel/polypropylene Janus membrane for interfacial photocatalysis

Abstract

In this study, a WO2.72@Fe3O4@cellulose nanofiber (CNF) aerogel (NC@CNF)/polypropylene (PP) Janus membrane was synthesized via freeze-drying. A low-density WO2.72@Fe3O4 nanocomposite was immobilized in CNF aerogel, and non-woven PP fabric was used as the substrate. The photocatalyst was designed to float on the surface of contaminated water in order to utilize all the irradiated light and easy recovery of the photocatalyst, that results hindering secondary pollution. The lightweight cross-linked CNF and hydrophobicity of PP enable flotation and enhance the stability in aqueous solution. The synthesized sample was systematically characterized, and the photocatalytic performance was investigated for photodegradation of methyl orange (MO) under full-spectrum solar light irradiation. The results showed that the fabricated Janus membrane photocatalyst system exhibited outstanding photodegradation performance, degrading 85% of MO within two hours. The results also indicated that the rate of photodegradation of MO by the NC@CNF/PP Janus membrane was approximately 1.3 times than that of NC. Besides the Janus membrane also exhibited excellent water evaporation performance having 96% water evaporation efficiency. This indicates that aerogel has interesting property for immobilizing functional nanomaterials for the development of self-floatable materials. Then, the developed self-floatable material could play a crucial role in environmental remediation. Therefore, this study can facilitate the development of CNF aerogel immobilized full-spectrum solar–light-active self-floatable material systems for photocatalysis and water evaporation.