Multifunctional negatively-charged poly (ether sulfone) nanofibrous membrane for water remediation

Shengqiu Chen; Chunyan Lv; Kai Hao; Lunqiang Jin; Yi Xie; Weifeng Zhao; Shudong Sun; Xiang Zhang; Changsheng Zhao

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2018.12.038

Multifunctional negatively-charged poly (ether sulfone) nanofibrous membrane for water remediation

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2019 Mar 7:538:648-659. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2018.12.038. Epub 2018 Dec 11.

Authors

Shengqiu Chen¹, Chunyan Lv¹, Kai Hao¹, Lunqiang Jin², Yi Xie¹, Weifeng Zhao¹, Shudong Sun¹, Xiang Zhang³, Changsheng Zhao⁴

Affiliations

¹ College of Polymer Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China.
² College of Polymer Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China; School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Refractories and Metallurgy, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430081, China.
³ College of Polymer Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China. Electronic address: zhangxiangscu2011@163.com.
⁴ College of Polymer Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China; National Engineering Research Center for Biomaterials, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610064, China. Electronic address: zhaochsh70@163.com.

PMID: 30572229
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2018.12.038

Abstract

Multifunctional materials, which can effectively and simultaneously remove various water-soluble contaminants like dyes and heavy metal ions, and separate oil from water, are urgent to meet increasing challenges on wastewater remediation. Herein, a cross-linked poly (acrylic acid) (PAA) modified poly (ether sulfone) nanofibrous membrane (NFM) was fabricated by a facile in-situ pre-reaction followed by electrospinning. The as-prepared NFM showed excellent hydrophilicity and underwater lipophobicity, therefore expressed excellent water permeability with high water flux (about 5142 L m² h^-1). As a result, under solely driven by gravity, the NFM was capable to separate emulsified oil/water emulsion and a wide range of oil/water mixtures. Moreover, repeating separation tests indicated that the NFM had great long-term sustainability even after ten separation cycles. In addition, due to the introduction of PAA and the large surface-to-volume ratio, the NFM also expressed rapid adsorption capacity for cationic dyes as well as heavy metal ions; thus could simultaneously remove these contaminants during the oil/water separation process. Furthermore, the NFM could be also decorated by Ag NPs to endow the membranes with remarkable antibacterial ability against both E. coli and S. aureus. Our findings strongly suggested that the multifunctional NFM may have great potential in treating complicated wastewater.

Keywords: Antibacterial activity; Dye selective separation; Multifunctional negatively-charged nanofibrous membrane; Oil/water separation; Silver nanoparticles.