Hierarchical Porous Iron Metal-Organic Gel/Bacterial Cellulose Aerogel: Ultrafast, Scalable, Room-Temperature Aqueous Synthesis, and Efficient Arsenate Removal

Rational design of advanced adsorbed materials with hierarchically porous architecture, high surface area, and macroscopic shapeability is of great significance for boosting their potential in practical applications. Herein, a monolithic iron metal-organic gel/bacterial cellulose (denoted as Fe-MOG/BC) composite has been successfully fabricated based on an ultrafast, scalable, aqueous-based synthetic strategy at room temperature. As expected, the resulting Fe-MOG/BC aerogel possesses a three-dimensional (3D) hierarchically porous microstructure and abundant active sites, being ultralight, water-fast, and mechanically robust. Benefiting from these unique structural characteristics, the resulting Fe-MOG/BC composite exhibits superb saturated sorption capacity (495 mg g(-1)) toward arsenate, outperforming other reported nanoadsorbents. Further, the Fe-MOG/BC aerogel enables efficient decontamination of 5 ppm of As(V) to below the permitted threshold in drinking water (10 ppb) within 30 min, accompanied by excellent selectivity and reusability. Significantly, as an efficient filter unit, the Fe-MOG/BC aerogel (0.1 g) can continuously treat 3900 mL wastewater (spiked with 1 ppm As(V)) to the safe level. Such an excellent As(V) decontamination capability of Fe-MOG/BC together with the ease, low cost, and scalable production prefigures its huge prospects for practical wastewater remediation.

Automated summary

In this study, a monolithic Fe-MOG/BC composite with a hierarchically porous microstructure and abundant active sites was successfully fabricated. The composite exhibited excellent arsenate sorption capacity and efficient decontamination capability, indicating promising prospects for practical wastewater remediation.