Chemical modification, electrospinning and adsorption behaviors of poly(vinyl chloride)

The chemical substitution, electrospinning, irradiated graft copolymerization of poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) and the cationic dye adsorption behavior of grafted PVC were studied. IR spectroscopy, thermogravimetry, size exclusion chromatography, scanning electron microscopy and UV-vis spectrophotometry were used to characterize the microstructures and morphology of PVC and modified PVC as well as their dye adsorption behaviors. The results showed that PVC was successfully modified with sodium N,N-diethyldithiocarbamate (NaETC) as a pendant or crosslinker. The introduction of ETC improved the electrospinnability of PVC while accelerated its thermal degradation. After being irradiated with UV, acrylic acid (AA) was successfully grafted onto PVC membranes. The cationic dye adsorption capacity of AA grafted PVC was greatly improved with the equilibrium sorption capacity reaching 27.98mg/L, in comparison with that of pure PVC of 15.98mg/L.