Macroscopic polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) aerogel is of great interest in environmental remediation due to its low cost and easy fabrication. However, the hydrophily of PVA aerogel limited its application in oil-water separation. In this work, boron nitride (BN)-modified PVA aerogel has been successfully prepared by a cost-effective frozen-drying method. PVA plays a role as a scaffold of aerogel to support BN nanosheets which can modify the surface properties of PVA aerogel, resulting in a dramatic change of wettability from hydrophily (0 degrees) to hydrophobicity (94.9 degrees-100.8 degrees). Moreover, the obtained BN-modified PVA aerogel possesses a favorable porous structure, low density (41.8-60.0 mg/cm(3)) and good adsorption capacity (12-38 g/g), which make it a promising wastewater treatment material. Importantly, PVA aerogel with other functions can be easily fabricated through coupling with other inorganic materials by this strategy, which can provide various promising applications for environmental remediation. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.