Facile construction of a degradable and renewable superhydrophobic indole-based hemiaminal aerogel for efficient oil-water separation

Design readily available and inexpensive aerogels as potential sorbent materials for oil-water separation is extremely significant because of the increasing discharge of domestic oil pollution. Hereby, a novel superhydrophobic indole-based hemiaminal aerogel (PCINA) without any post-surface treatment was fabricated by a facile, simple and mild method via sol-gel technology followed by freeze-drying. The as-obtained indole-based hemiaminal aerogel exhibited high absorption capacity for varieties of oils and organic solvents. In addition, the separation efficiency of oil-water mixture was as high as 99.8%, even the separation efficiency of emulsion could achieve to 98.2%. More excitingly, the indole-based hemiaminal aerogel PCINA possessed repeatability and regeneration due to the feasible desorption and rapid degradation, suggesting that the green and renewable aerogel was a promising material for the treatment of oil contaminants in different fields.