Dehydration of Cloudy-diesel Using Poly(Acrylamide-co-sodium Polyacrylate) Hydrogel Grafted Onto Cellulose

This article discusses the synthesis and application of a novel hydrogel to remove water from diesel. The poly(sodium acrylate-co-acrylamide) grafted onto cellulose hydrogel combines natural and synthetic polymers in a single novel formulation. The synthesized of the hydrogel was evaluated using a 2 ³ full factorial design with two initiation methods (redox or thermal), two cellulose types (cellulose nanocrystal - CNC or hydroxyethyl cellulose - HEC) and two cellulose loadings (4 or 10%) as independent factors. The hydrogel swelling degree and final water concentration on diesel were used as responses. The best performing hydrogel was made with CNC using the redox initiation system. This hydrogel was further analyzed for its kinetic of water uptake from diesel and compared with ungrafted poly(sodium acrylate-co-acrylamide) hydrogels for their maximum swelling degree and water removal from diesel. The cellulose loading on the hydrogel was not found to be significant for the analyzed conditions. The cellulose-grafted hydrogel made with 4% CNC using the redox system achieved a swelling degree of around 139 g.g ^− 1 and reduced the water content in diesel from 5,000 to 150 mg.kg ^− 1 . Compared to pure ungrafted hydrogel, the cellulose grafted hydrogel swelled less but removed more water from diesel. The hydrogel treatment also reduced the fuel turbidity and made it more compatible with standard requirements. This work demonstrates the successful synthesis of hydrogels of poly(SA-co-AAm) grafted onto cellulose and proves that these novel hybrid compounds can be used as fuel desiccants.