Abstract
In this paper, cellulose chitosan composite aerogels were prepared through sol-gel and freeze-drying processes. The porous morphology of the aerogels was controlled by adjusting the cellulose concentration. Within a certain range, as the concentration of cellulose increases, the pore diameter of the composite aerogel becomes smaller and the pore structure becomes denser. The cellulose-chitosan composite aerogel can successfully separate the oil-water mixture without asphalt and showed stable filtration performance. The filtration speed is basically unchanged after a slight decrease and can be maintained at about 90% of the initial filtration speed within 30 min. The filtration speed can reach up to 9315 kg·h(-1)·m(-2). When filtering bituminous oil-water mixtures, the filtration rate decreased significantly, with a 50% drop in 30 min. After adding the asphalt stabilizer poly(styrene-alt-octadecyl maleimide) (SNODMI), which is made in our laboratory, the effect of aerogel filtering the asphalt-containing oil-water mixture is obviously improved, and the downward trend of filtration speed is obviously improved. The combination of SNODMI and cellulose-chitosan has great application potential in the field of asphalt-containing oil-water separation.