Self-Healing Hydrogel toward Metal Ion Rapid Removal via Available Solar-Driven Fashion

Abstract

Heavy metal ion pollution has been considered a big issue because of the high harmful and destructive effects to human beings. Hydrogel adsorption has received considerable interest in this aspect. However, the challenge still exists because the adsorption process is timeconsuming. Herein, we designed and prepared poly(HPA-co-AA-co-NVP) hydrogels (HPA = hydroxypropyl acrylate, AA = acrylic acid, NVP = N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone) via frontal polymerization (FP) for heavy ion removal. By virtue of high reaction rate of FP, the whole process of polymerization could be accomplished within 10 min without further energy. The as-prepared hydrogels exhibited pH sensitivity, excellent self-healing properties (a self-healing efficiency up to 90.9%), and heavy metal ion adsorption behavior. More importantly, we developed a new solar-driven method for rapid ion uptake, where solar energy was used to facilitate the adsorption rate. As compared to general adsorption in water without any treatment, this new solar-driven method provides a great efficient adsorption process toward heavy metal ions, which increases by 6 times. Furthermore, the application in desalination of seawater was also realized by the solar-driven method. This work not only provides a time-saving and low-energy synthesis pathway for multifunctional hydrogels via FP but also gives a new insight into rapid removal of ions by a new solar-driven method.

3D Photothermal Cryogels for Solar-Driven Desalination

“…Specifically, this technique involves the absorption and conversion of solar energy into heat to drive the evaporation of water from nonvolatile contaminated solutions, followed by the collection of the purified water via vapor condensation. Compared to the traditional solar-driven evaporation that involves the bulk heating of water, the interfacial solar evaporation process is more energy-efficient as it confines the photoconverted heat to the evaporative portion of water via the heat localization effect presented by well-designed photothermal materials. , Compared to other mainstream desalination technologies (e.g., reverse osmosis and multistage flash) − that require high-energy inputs, sophisticated operational controls as well as large-footprint investments, interfacial solar-driven evaporation is an infrastructure-independent technique that can be operated remotely without additional power supply. , Furthermore, it can be used to desalinate hypersaline waters (up to 100 g of dissolved salt per kg of seawater, i.e., equivalent to the water of the Dead Sea) and produce a distillate of superior quality. , Besides seawater desalination, solar-driven evaporation has been also shown capable of purifying industrial wastewaters contaminated by strong acids and bases, heavy metals, nonvolatile organics (dyes and detergents), and even radioactive wastes. − …”

Facile and Green Preparation of Superfast Responsive Macroporous Polyacrylamide Hydrogels by Frontal Polymerization of Polymerizable Deep Eutectic Monomers

“…As a new kind approach to synthesize a polymer, fontal polymerization (FP) has some unique character, for example, the conversion of a monomer into the polymer by propagation of the reaction, short reaction time, and reduced energy costs − Many polymeric hydrogels such as poly­( N -isopropylacrylamide) and poly­(MAH-CD- co -AA) hydrogels, poly­(acrylic acid- co -acrylamide), poly­(acrylic acid- co -acrylamide)/activated carbon, and poly­(acrylic acid- co -acrylamide)/SiO 2 hydrogels have been synthesized via FP. − In the early research, we have used dimethylformamide (DMF) (high boiling point) and small quantity of GO water solution as mixture solvent to prepare macroporous GO/PAA nanocomposite hydrogels via FP Although the preparation method is rapid and simple, the preparation process is not green because that it requires a large amount of toxic organic DMF.…”

Rapid Fabrication of Patterned Gels via Microchannel‐Conformal Frontal Polymerization

“…It can be ascribed to the low reactivity of HPA, thus the increase of HPA leads to a decline of the velocity. [37] While the increase of channel diameter leads to the increase of frontal velocity (Figure 3b) due to less heat loss. Figure 3c illustrates the curves of front position versus time at different initiator concentrations.…”