Water pollution affects all living habitats, since it is the most basic element that sustains all life forms and, as an exceptional solvent, it readily makes any compound available for living cells, either nutrients or noxious substances. Elimination of molecular contaminants from water quality is one of the most challenging technical problems that conventional treatments like flocculation and filtration fail short to defeat. Particulate photocatalysts, used to degrade contaminants, have the main drawback of their recovery from the water matrices. The inclusion of photocatalytic nanoparticles (NPs) into a large supporting framework, is presented as an innovative approach aiming to ensure a facile separation from water. To this end, three-dimensional (3D) aerogels with photocatalytic properties were prepared by a simple and scalable method based on the reduction—induced self-assembly of graphene oxide (GO) in the presence of BiOI nanoparticles. With the help of ascorbic acid, as a green reducing agent, partial reduction of GO into reduced graphene oxide (RGO) and self-assembly of both kinds of nanostructures into a porous monolith was achieved. BiOI doped RGO aerogels were further stabilized and morphologically controlled using poly (ethylene glycol) as stabilizer. The photocatalytic performance of these aerogels was evaluated by following the discoloration of methylene blue (MB) solution, under visible light irradiation, showing that structure and dispersion degree of NPs to be fundamental variables. Hence, this methodology is proposed to produce hybrid aerogels with controlled morphology and photocatalytic performance that has the potential to be used in water cleaning procedures.

水污染影响所有生物栖息地，因为它是维持所有生命形式的最基本元素，并且作为一种特殊的溶剂，它很容易为活细胞提供任何化合物，无论是营养物质还是有毒物质。从水质中消除分子污染物是最具挑战性的技术问题之一，而絮凝和过滤等传统处理方法未能解决这些问题。用于降解污染物的微粒光催化剂的主要缺点是从水基质中回收。将光催化纳米粒子 (NPs) 包含在一个大型支撑框架中，是一种旨在确保与水轻松分离的创新方法。为此，基于氧化石墨烯（GO）在BiOI纳米颗粒存在下的还原诱导自组装，通过一种简单且可扩展的方法制备了具有光催化性能的三维（3D）气凝胶。在抗坏血酸作为绿色还原剂的帮助下，实现了将 GO 部分还原成还原氧化石墨烯 (RGO) 并将两种纳米结构自组装成多孔整料。使用聚（乙二醇）作为稳定剂，BiOI 掺杂的 RGO 气凝胶得到进一步稳定和形态控制。这些气凝胶的光催化性能是通过亚甲基蓝 (MB) 溶液在可见光照射下的变色来评估的，表明纳米颗粒的结构和分散度是基本变量。因此，