Herein, we report a sustainable and indigenous approach for synthesizing a hydrophobic three-dimensional sugar-derived carbon aerogel (SCA) using edible sugar in a traditional Indian clay pot (used as the carbonization vessel). This simple, single-step process produces a lightweight, porous, and hydrophobic aerogel without the need for costly conventional reactors or complex drying steps. The SCA showed its adsorption capabilities towards representative industrial pollutants (benzimidazole (BZI), benzotriazole (BTA)) and pharmaceutical pollutants (paracetamol (PCM), and acetanilide (AN)). To know about the type of adsorption and various stages of adsorption, different kinetic and isotherm analyses were studied. The aerogel demonstrates recyclability with minimal loss of performance up to five cycles. Furthermore, its efficiency in spiked and real wastewater samples highlighted the material's practical scalability and low-cost applicability.
Lamba et al. (2026) studied this question.