Developing pectin aerogels with alternative drying methods for scalable production
Résumé
Aerogels are solid materials with nanometer-scale pores showing interesting properties (e.g., high porosity, low density, and high specific surface area) for a range of applications. The field of aerogels based on natural resources, such as polysaccharides, is gaining more and more attention due to the need for sustainable alternatives to conventional, non-renewable counterparts. Among bio-based aerogels, pectin aerogels possess a density of around 0.1 g cm -3 and a very fine network with meso-and small macropores.[1] The preparation of pectin aerogels includes the final step of drying of the pectin wet gels with supercritical CO2, which is essential to preserve the nanostructured open porous network of the gel in the solid dry pectin aerogel. However, this step requires a specific high-pressure process and acts as a significant impediment to the industrialization of such materials. Freeze drying can be utilized as an alternative drying technique, but it typically results in materials with big macropores. [2] In this work, neat pectin aerogel-like materials were obtained after treatment in alkaline media and dry materials were obtained without the use of supercritical drying or freeze drying and without collapse of the open porous network. The influence of the pectin degree of esterification and the concentration and nature of the base used were studied. The pectin porous materials obtained have low densities, in range of 0.07 -0.30 g cm -3 and specific surface area up to 280 m 2 g -1 , similar to the analogous pectin aerogels dried with supercritical drying.
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