Macroporous Cellulose-based Cryogels with Tunable Porous Structure and Surface Functional Groups

In this work, cellulose-based macroporous cryogels were fabricated by grafting with acrylic acid and acrylamide, which provided the carboxyl and amino functional groups, respectively. The effects of crosslinker, extra water, acrylic acid/(acrylic acid+acrylamide) feeding ratio on the structure and swelling performance of the resultant cryogels were experimentally investigated. Cellulose-based cryogels with different pore size were prepared by adjusting the reaction parameters. The pore size and functional group contents influenced the swelling behavior of the cryogels. The fabricated cryogels were also investigated as an adsorbent for the removal of toxic methyl blue (MB) from aqueous solution. The interconnected macroporous structure as well as large number of functional groups of the cryogels led to the high adsorption capacity of MB. The maximum adsorption capacity was around 990.1 mg per 1 g dye gel within 60 min. The investigation of the adsorption kinetics revealed that the adsorption process of MB from aqueous solution was well described by pseudo-second order kinetic model. Large-scale preparation of cryogel adsorbents with tunable porous structure and surface functional groups are possible. Therefore, the macroporous cellulose-based cryogels can be used as an adsorbent for the removal of chemical toxic products from aqueous solution.