Hygroscopic Hydrogels for Removal of Trace Water from Liquid Fuels

Trace water in liquid fuels usually causes serious damage to engines and storage devices, while its removal remains a difficult task. In this contribution, we report how hybrid hydrogels incorporated with hygroscopic polymers can be used as an efficient desiccant to remove trace water from liquid fuels. In a typical water removal test, it was found that the addition of ∼0.1 g of the hygroscopic xerogel can effectively decrease the trace water in 10 mL of fuel from ∼47 to ∼7 ppm within 6 h, suggesting the excellent dehydration performance of the hybrid hydrogels because of the presence of hygroscopic polymers. Importantly, the xerogel-based desiccant can be repeatedly used without obvious loss of the dehydration ability even for seven cycles, which is strongly beneficial for its industrial applications. Such hydrogel materials incorporated with hygroscopic moieties can be a class of competitive desiccants for the removal of trace water in the chemical industry.