Salvatore Marullo1, Carla Rizzo2, Nadka T Dintcheva3, Francesco Giannici4, Francesca D'Anna5. 1. Dipartimento STEBICEF-Sezione di Chimica-Università degli Studi di Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, Parco d'Orleans II, 90128 Palermo, Italy. Electronic address: salvatore.marullo@unipa.it. 2. Dipartimento STEBICEF-Sezione di Chimica-Università degli Studi di Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, Parco d'Orleans II, 90128 Palermo, Italy. 3. Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Ambientale, Aerospaziale, dei Materiali, Università degli Studi di Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, Ed. 6, 90128 Palermo, Italy. 4. Dipartimento di Fisica e Chimica, Università degli Studi di Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, I-90128, Palermo, Italy. 5. Dipartimento STEBICEF-Sezione di Chimica-Università degli Studi di Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, Parco d'Orleans II, 90128 Palermo, Italy. Electronic address: francesca.danna@unipa.it.
Abstract
HYPOTHESIS: Nanostructured sorbents and, in particular, supramolecular gels are emerging as efficient materials for the removal of toxic contaminants from water, like industrial dyes. It is also known that ionic liquids can dissolve significant amounts of dyes. Consequently, supramolecular ionic liquids gels could be highly efficient sorbents for dyes removal. This would also contribute to overcome the drawbacks associated with dye removal by liquid-liquid extraction with neat ionic liquids which would require large volumes of extractant and a more difficult separation of the phases. EXPERIMENTS: Herein we employed novel supramolecular ionic liquid gels based on diimidazolium salts bearing naturally occurring or biomass derived anions, to adsorb cationic and anionic dyes from wastewaters. We also carried out a detailed investigation of thermal, structural, morphological and rheological features of our gels to identify which of them are key in designing better sorbents for environmental remediation. FINDINGS: The most effective gels showed fast and thorough removal of cationic dyes like Rhodamine B. These gels could also be reused up to 20 times without any loss in removal efficiency. Overall, our ionic gels outperform most of gel-based sorbents systems so far reported in literature.
HYPOTHESIS: Nanostructured sorbents and, in particular, supramolecular gels are emerging as efficient materials for the removal of toxic contaminants from water, like industrial dyes. It is also known that ionic liquids can dissolve significant amounts of dyes. Consequently, supramolecular ionic liquids gels could be highly efficient sorbents for dyes removal. This would also contribute to overcome the drawbacks associated with dye removal by liquid-liquid extraction with neat ionic liquids which would require large volumes of extractant and a more difficult separation of the phases. EXPERIMENTS: Herein we employed novel supramolecular ionic liquid gels based on diimidazolium salts bearing naturally occurring or biomass derived anions, to adsorb cationic and anionic dyes from wastewaters. We also carried out a detailed investigation of thermal, structural, morphological and rheological features of our gels to identify which of them are key in designing better sorbents for environmental remediation. FINDINGS: The most effective gels showed fast and thorough removal of cationic dyes like Rhodamine B. These gels could also be reused up to 20 times without any loss in removal efficiency. Overall, our ionic gels outperform most of gel-based sorbents systems so far reported in literature.
Authors: William J Peveler; Hollie Packman; Shirin Alexander; Raamanand R Chauhan; Lilian M Hayes; Thomas J Macdonald; Jeremy K Cockcroft; Sarah Rogers; Dirk G A L Aarts; Claire J Carmalt; Ivan P Parkin; Joseph C Bear Journal: Soft Matter Date: 2018-11-07 Impact factor: 3.679
Authors: Andrea Maio; Ivana Pibiri; Marco Morreale; Francesco Paolo La Mantia; Roberto Scaffaro Journal: Nanomaterials (Basel) Date: 2021-06-29 Impact factor: 5.076