Oxidant-templating fabrication of pure polypyrrole hydrogel beads as a highly efficient dye adsorbent

Polypyrrole (PPY) is a type of dye adsorbent with good adsorbing capability. Fabrication of PPY with a porous architecture, though technically challenging, can further enhance its dye adsorbing capability due to the tremendous increase of surface area. In this manuscript, an oxidant-templating strategy was developed to fabricate pure PPY hydrogel (PHG) beads comprising nanofibrous networks, which were utilized as highly efficient dye absorbents. For instance, PPY hydrogel beads showed a maximum adsorption capacity of 236.9 mg g(−1) for methyl orange (MO), which was significantly higher than that of PPY powder. The minimal effective concentration of MO for the adsorption was as low as 0.4 ppm. Besides that, the PPY hydrogel beads displayed good regeneration performance for adsorbing organic dyes. Thus, the PPY hydrogel beads with low solid contents and large surface area could be considered as a promising organic dye absorbent for wastewater treatment in various industrial fields.