Hierarchical Bamboo/Silver Nanoparticle Composites for Sustainable Water Purification

Water reclamation is the most effective way to continuouslyprovideclean water to combat catastrophic global water scarcity. However,current technology for water purification is not conducive to sustainabilitydue to the high energy consumption and negative environmental impact.Here, we introduce an innovative method by utilizing the hierarchicalmicrostructure of bamboo for water purification. Natural bamboo wasdelignified followed by freeze-drying to obtain a bamboo aerogel witha porosity of 72.0%; then, the bamboo aerogel was coated with silvernanoparticles to form a hierarchical bamboo/silver nanoparticle composite.The scanning electron microscopy images and energy-dispersive X-rayspectroscopy results indicated that the silver nanoparticles wereuniformly attached to the parenchyma cell surface. By physical adsorptionand catalytic reduction, the bamboo/silver nanoparticle compositewas able to degrade methylene blue by more than 96.7%, which is mainlyattributed to the large specific surface area of the bamboo providingmore space for the purification reaction. This composite can be potentiallyused for board applications with its high porosity, mechanical reliability,and sustainability.