Oil spills clean-up by super hydrophobic organo-modified silica aerogel monoliths treated by different solvents in ambient condition

Abstract

Water-repellent silica aerogel with a high surface area and extremely low-density considered a very successful adsorbent for oil spills clean-up in the water surface treatment. The present work exhibits new route for the preparation of superhydrophobic organo-modified silica aerogel monoliths from tetraethoxysilane/vinyltriethoxysilane/Ethylene glycol (1:1:1 volume ratio) using sol-gel process and drying in ambient condition. The effects of different solvents (methanol, ethanol and propanol) in the solvent exchange step during the samples preparation procedure were studied. Characterization was performed by FT-IR, XRD, BET and SEM with EDX. The bulk density of the aerogel samples and contact angle of water droplet were measured. The as-prepared monolithic aerogel samples demonstrated a good adsorbing capacity (from 4.83–6.94 gram oil/gram aerogel) against two kind of commercial engines oils which have different specific weights.