An eco-friendly cellulose acetate chemical sorbent for hazardous volatile organic liquid spill: a perfect material to solve the issue of evaporating hazards

Accidents related to spilling of chemicals and chemical wastes are never ceasing, especially as our reliance on chemical products increases continuously. For the sake of workers’ safety and maintenance of our environment, it is important to not only reduce the frequency of such accidents but also minimize the damage from each accident through proper spill control methods. Our focus here is to address the issues regarding rapid evaporation of the hazardous volatile organic liquids spills and propose a potential sorbent material, cellulose acetate, which can significantly reduce the rate of evaporation of highly volatile chemicals such as acetone, acrolein, and propylene oxide. Compared to conventional chemical sorbents such as activated carbon, expanded vermiculite, and cellulose, cellulose acetate not only exhibits higher vapor retention abilities, but also demonstrates comparable sorption efficiencies for sorption of acetone, acrolein, and propylene oxide. Cellulose acetate is also an environmentally friendly and economical material that is safe to use even for sorption of highly flammable chemicals, thus, its potential as a new class of commercial chemical sorbent is very promising.