The treatment of industrial printing
and dyeing wastewater is the
focus of the chemical environmental protection industry. Noticeably,
the physical adsorption has attracted wide attention due to the selective
dye adsorption, simple process, and convenient operation. New aerogels
featuring low density and high porosity are regarded as ideal physical
adsorption materials for sewage treatment. In this work, high internal
phase Pickering emulsions were designed and prepared. The polysaccharide
complex originating from sodium octenylsuccinate starch and chitosan
serves as the stabilizer, water and hexane act as the external and
internal phase, respectively. Acrylic acid was introduced into the
external phase to initiate UV polymerization. The high internal phase
Pickering emulsions as templates were removed through freeze-drying
to produce aerogel materials with macroporous structures, the size
of the pores: 43.54 ± 12.75 μm. The scanning electron microscopy
(SEM) images show that the pore size of aerogel materials was similar
to that of emulsion droplets, verifying the template role of emulsion
in the polymerization process. In addition, aerogels possess good
mechanical properties and can withstand a pressure of megapascal,
exhibiting favorable stability when floating in water for a long time
(6 months). Methyl violet, malachite green, methylene blue, and acridine
orange in aqueous solution were selected as model dyes to explore
the removal process and the mechanism. The adsorption was conformed
to be the pseudo-second-order kinetic model and the Freundlich adsorption
isotherm, namely, the dye adsorption of the aerogels was the multilayer
adsorption on the uneven surface, and the mechanism of the adsorption
was related to the π–π interaction.