Facile fabrication of green and sustainable gelatin-based aerogels for marine oil spill recovery

Efficient and rapid cleanup of marine oil spills is crucial for environmental protection and resource recovery. Biomass aerogel has a broad application prospect in oil spill treatment, but is often limited by the complex preparation process and the use of toxic cross-linking agents. In this study, the hydrophobic gelatin-based aerogels (HGAs) were simply prepared for marine oil spill recovery based on self-crosslinking of gelatin, bubbles produced by surfactants and high-speed stirring, and chemical vapor deposition using methyl trichlorosilane (MTCS). The results showed that the HGAs exhibited a three-dimensional porous structure with a water contact angle of 131.6°. Their adsorption capacities for various oils and organic solvents ranged from 60.4 to 146.5 g/g, which was linearly related to the oil density and depended on the number of pores within the material. The oil adsorption by the HGAs reached equilibrium within 30 s, following the pseudo-second-order kinetic model and the HGAs were highly stable in different temperature, pH, and salinity conditions. Simple squeezing can recover 80 % of the spilled oil, and retain 86 % of the initial adsorption capacity after 10 adsorption-squeeze cycles. Additionally, the HGAs had an excellent continuous oil-water separation performance, demonstrating significant potential and practicability in marine oil spill recovery.