Preparation of bio-based porous material with high oil adsorption capacity from bio-polyurethane and sugarcane bagasse

This work presents the fabrication of bio-based porous material for highly efficient removing of oil from oil/water system. The sunflower oil-based polyol was synthesized and then used to replace the petro-polyol in the simultaneous preparation of a sugarcane bagasse-polyurethane composite (SC-PU composite) by inserting sugarcane fiber filler into the PU matrix. The bio-polyol was obtained from sunflower oil with a hydroxyl number of 182 mg KOH g-1, and functionality of 3.5 OH groups per mol. The bio-polyol and the newly designed bio-based SC-PU composite were characterized by NMR, FT-IR and SEM analysis. The effect of several parameters such as bio-polyol/petro-polyol ratio, dosage of adding sugarcane fiber and size of filler particles on oil adsorption capacity of a new sorbent material were also investigated. Oil sorption capacity of the newly designed sorbent was relatively high, up to 15.2 g g-1 when 20% sugarcane bagasse with a particle size of 1 mm was added into the bio-polyurethane matrix. This is nearly four times higher than that of neat PU foam without the biomass filler and lignocellulosic materials. This finding demonstrated the importance of selecting the right components to fabricate a cost-effective, highly renewable and biodegradable sorbent with high oil-water separation efficiency, reducing the use of chemicals from fossil sources.