Cellulose-based formaldehyde adsorbents with large capacities: Efficient use of polyethylenimine for graphene oxide stabilization in alkaline-urea system

摘要

A cellulose-based polyethylenimine modified graphene oxide (PEI-GO) composite aerogel is fabricated through the alkaline-urea aqueous system. Inspired from the performance of nanocarriers in gene delivery, this article proposes a pathway to disperse GO in the green environment with strong electrolyte concentrations via the decorated branched PEI. The entire aqueous system shows good miscibility and stability. Meanwhile, the dynamic light scattering results indicate that PEI-GO and cellulose chains become entangled to form a new supramolecular complex in the alkaline-urea solution, and a "hand" model is devised accordingly. The efficient dispersion of PEI-GO (1-0.1%) over the entire cellulose support structure (3%) enables the resultant aerogel to exhibit a gaseous formaldehyde adsorption capacity, that is, 8.51 times greater than the pure cellulose aerogel under ambient temperatures. This dual function opens up enormous opportunities to process cellulose-based GO materials in this green and inexpensive solvent with strong electrolyte concentrations. (c) 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019, 136, 47860.