Simple assembling process for polyimide aerogel and its application in water pollutants absorption

Porous media based on organic and inorganic materials are now showing their great potential in various application. The synthetic technology has been studied by many researchers for long periods. However, the further research for simpler synthetic processes is still on demand since the synthesis of aerogel is still complicated and hard to be applied in industrial producing line, especially due to the need of batch system and drying process with high temperature. Here, the simple process for synthesizing polyimide aerogel (PIA) is demonstrated. The simplified process requires a lower temperature and autoclave is no more needed, which was the main obstacle applying in industrial production. With the comparison between PIA synthesized with original process and simplified one, the more uniformly distributed hierarchical pore size is observed on the aerogel synthesized by simplified process with similar porous structure through BET. As polyimide porous media shows great stability both in air and water, the application for pollutants removal is studied. The advantages of polyimide material make it possible to be recycled by simply heating the aerogels. The pollutants mixed in water solution are efficiently removed through the absorption by aerogel and its recyclability is also checked by repeat testing. The repeat testing proved the effective absorbing ability and recyclability with high stability of structure in the solution.