Recycled polystyrene-cotton composites, giving a second life to plastic residues for environmental remediation

Abstract The massive production of plastics and their chemical stability make these materials primary toxicological and environmental threats. Therefore, the main aim of this research is to prepare a composite material using a recycled polymer (polystyrene obtained from food packages) as adsorbent and natural fibers (cotton) as substrate. The research has a threefold environmental approach: (i) it allows the recycling of plastics residues; (ii) it proposes an almost solventless recycling procedure which does not require sophisticated and expensive devices; and (iii) the resulting adsorbent can be used for environmental remediation. The composite, which has been characterized by infrared spectroscopy (IR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), has been initially evaluated for the direct oil/water separation. The results open the door to the use of the composite as a physical barrier in case of oil spills. After its successful preliminary evaluation, it has been applied to the removal of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from water. The main variables affecting the extraction of PAHs with the composite were studied and working under the best conditions, the absolute recoveries vary in the range from 54.7% (fluorene) to 74% (pyrene). These values are acceptable as they have been evaluated at a relatively high concentration level (50 μg/L). Also, if the results are contextualized considering the analytical procedure followed for their calculation, the accumulated recoveries vary from 65 (fluorene) to 93% (pyrene).