CARBONACEOUS MATERIALS AS FILLERS IN POLYVINYL ALCOHOL HYDROGELS USEFUL FOR WATER REMEDIATION

PETER SHUTTLEWORTH; LAURA M. SANCHEZ; VERA A. ALVAREZ; DANIEL A. MARTIN

Mar del Plata

Simposio; XVI Simposio Latinoamericano de Polímeros (SLAP 2018) y el XIV Congreso Iberoamericano de Polímeros (CIP 2018); 2018

It was estimated that approximately 0.7 million tonnes of different types of dyes are produced every year around the world1. The presence of dyes in water is especially problematic since most of these chemical substances are very stable towards solar radiation, humidity, microbial attacks and oxidizing agents2. Thus, they are very difficult to be degraded to less harmful products for both human health and the environment. The variety of possible harmful health effects is very broad, and depends on the dye type and time exposure. Hydrogels can adsorb substrates in their pores (superficially) and then absorb them into the matrix (swelling and hosting species between its chains). The main advantages of the hydrogel sorption are the easy recovery of dyes and less sludge volume produced, their high hydrophilicity, simplicity of design and preparation. However, pure polymeric hydrogels usually have limitations, mainly related to their poor mechanical properties and stability, which are overcome by the addition of small amounts of nanometric fillers such as carbonaceous materials. In the present work we prepare and characterize composite hydrogels from PVA and several carbonaceous materials, obtained from starch and alginic acid at two different pyrolysis temperatures3, through the formation of crystallites by freezing thawing (F-T) physical crosslinking method. The capability to remove water pollutants by the prepared materials were tested employing dyes as model pollutants.