Upcycling fruit waste into high-performance 3D porous aerogel for dye removal: Experimental and density functional theory study

Journal article, 2025

Durian shell waste was subjected to hydrothermal treatment followed by freeze-drying to create highly porous 3D aerogels, whose surfaces were judiciously functionalized to enable strong interactions with RhB dye. The aerogels were tailored to be superhydrophilic/oleophobic to enhance affinity to the dye, magnetic to enable directional mobility, and highly porous (up to 97 %) to augment the specific surface area. The durian shell waste – derived, surface-modified aerogels exhibited RhB removal efficiency of over 99 %. Density Functional Theory (DFT) simulations suggest that the strong adsorption of RhB onto the aerogel was governed by π–π interactions, hydrogen bonding, and electrostatic interactions.