Oil pollution has caused serious damage to water, and its treatment has always been a research hotspot at domestic and abroad. In-situ bur-ning, microbial degradation, and adsorption methods are often used in the treatment of oil pollution. Among them, the adsorption of oil causes widespread concern due to low cost, high efficiency, easy to recycle, and has no negative impact on the environment. Traditional oil adsorption materials, natural organic adsorbents such as kapok fiber has low oil absorption capacity and poor hydrophilicity, inorganic adsorbents such as zeolite exhibit poor floatability and slow kinetics, Synthetic organic adsorbents such as polypropylene fibers are non-biodegradable. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop an adsorbent having excellent selective adsorption, high adsorption capacity, and appropriate recyclability. Compared with traditional adsorption materials, aerogels have the advantages of light weight, large adsorption capacity and high selective adsorption, which have become the hotspots in recent years. Research on aerogels based oil adsorption materials mainly include: SiO2 aerogel, cellulose aerogel, carbon aerogel and graphene aerogel. The above four aerogel oil-absorbing materials have their own advantages and disadvantages. SiO2 aerogel has low cost, but its oil adsorption capacity is much lower than other types of aerogels. Bio-based aerogel has wide source and environmental friendliness, but it's mechanical strength is low and fragile. Carbon aerogels are chemically inert and not easily contaminated, but equipment and processes are complex and some raw materials are toxic. Graphene aerogel has the largest adsorption capacity in aerogels, but its high cost limits its large-scale use. Researchers have promoted the application of aerogels in actual oil treatment through the combination of different materials, the choice of raw mate-rials and the simplification of the process. In this paper, the research progress of various aerogels in oil adsorption is summarized. The modification process and oil absorption perfor-mance of aerogels are introduced. The adsorption properties and adsorption kinetics of organic/inorganic silicon based aerogel and graphene ae-rogel for oils are discussed and compared. In addition, the future development of aerogels based oil adsorption materials are also prospected. © 2020, Materials Review Magazine. All right reserved.
