For antagonizing urgent water pollution and increasing environmental consciousness, the integration of renewable resources and nanotechnologies has become a trend to improve water quality in the ecosystem. Here, we designed a green route to fabricate regenerated cellulose fibers (CFs) with 3D micro- and nanoporous structures in NaOH/urea aqueous solvent systems via a scalable wet-spinning procedure as support materials for nanoparticles (NPs). Modification of CFs with polyaniline@Ag nanocomposites through in situ reduction of the silver ion with aqueous aniline led to enhanced pollutant removal efficiency of functional cellulose-based fibers (FCFs), demonstrating both rapid hydrogenation catalytic performance for the reduction of p-nitrophenol and high antibacterial properties for in-flow water purification. Most importantly, the hierarchically porous structures of FCFs not only provided carrier space but also formed a limiting domain guaranteeing the homogeneity of FCFs even with a Ag NP content as high as 36.47 wt %. The prepared functional fibers show good behavior in in-flow water purification, representing significant advancement in the use of biomass fibers for catalytic and bactericidal applications in liquid media.
Keywords: alkali/urea solvent; cellulose; fibers; polyaniline/nanosilver; water decontamination.