LAUSR

Abstract The development of efficient and sustainable strategies for resource utilization of waste plastic is great of urgency, since waste plastic is a global environmental problem that poses problems in ecosystem services and sustainable development. Herein, this work provided a novel method to fabricate a three-dimensional porous aerogel membrane derived from waste aramid nanofiber and application in Tween80-stabilized oil-in-water emulsions separation. The dispersed aramid nanofiber, as model waste plastic, was obtained via abstracting the mobile hydrogen from the amide groups using a KOH/DMSO system. Then, the aerogel membrane was fabricated via combining solvent replacement and freeze-drying route. The three-dimensional sponge-like porous aerogel membrane, composed of interconnected nanofibers, has greatly improved emulsion separation efficiency due to the micropore size, high porosity, and special wettability. The contact angle results indicate the high superhydrophilic/underwater superoleophobic property of aerogel membrane, which was used for oil/water separation experiments driven solely by gravity, exhibiting an emulsion separation efficiency of 98.1% with permeances up to 1940 Lm-2h-1. Most importantly, the aerogel membrane still maintains high separation efficiency of over 98.0% after 10 subsequent cycles, implying its outstanding recyclability. This work not only provides a resource utilization strategy for fabricating functional materials by using waste plastic as raw materials but gives a feasible chemical separation material in efficient emulsion separation.