Open Access

ARTICLE

Urethane Modified Hydrophobic Compact Wood Pulp Paper for Oil Spill Cleanup: A Preliminary Study

Gustavo de Souza, Ricardo K. Kramer, Antonio J. F. Carvalho^*

Department of Materials Engineering, Sao Carlos School of Engineering (EESC), University of São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, Brazil

* Corresponding Author: Antonio J. F. Carvalho. Email:

(This article belongs to this Special Issue: 15th Brazilian Polymer Conference (15th CBPol))

Journal of Renewable Materials 2020, 8(10), 1257-1268. https://doi.org/10.32604/jrm.2020.011906

Received 04 June 2020; Accepted 31 July 2020; Issue published 31 August 2020

Abstract

Oil spills and oil/water wastewater are among the great concerns regarding oil pollution. Existing technologies face many limitations and in some cases are responsible for causing secondary pollution, therefore there is as seek for environmental friendly solutions. Biomass, from which celluloses are highlighted, are being employed for oil/water separation or oil absorbents membranes. Usually, these membranes are obtained by freeze drying of CNF (cellulose nano- fibrils) suspensions followed by chemical modification for hydrophobization, which involves expensive process as chemical vapor deposition and expensive reactants as sylanes, turning these processes hardly scalable. Here, we produced a natural porous structure paper from eucalyptus pulp fibers modified by a dipping and heating process in a blocked diisocyanate solution. After the surface treatment, contact angle with water reached 144° and water absorption reduced seven times, keeping the good oil absorbance. The chemical modification process is simple to be performed and use a very low quantity of reactant estimated to be less than 0.1 wt% based on cellulose. The good mechanical properties of the material allows its use in non usual conditions which can be of great importance depending on the environmental conditions.

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