Hydrophilic SPE/MPTES-PAN electrospun membrane prepared via click chemistry for high efficiency oil-water separation

There are various methods to introduce functional groups into the membrane surface to get oil-water separation performance, but most of them involve complicated reaction conditions and processes. Inspired by click chemistry, we developed a simple method to fabricate click chemistry-modified membranes. Firstly, polyacrylonitrile and gamma-mercaptopropyltriethoxysilane were mixed together to prepare nanofiber membrane by electrostatic spinning method. Secondly, 3-[N,N-dimethyl-[2-(2-methylprop-2-enoyloxy)ethyl]ammonium]propane-1-sulfonate inner salt was grafted onto the membrane surface by thiol-ene click chemistry. The obtained modified membrane displays hydrophilicity and underwater oleophobicity. Driven by gravity at 1 kPa, the pure water flux of the membrane reached 787 L/(m(2)center dot h). Importantly, it also demonstrates good antifouling properties with a flux recovery rate of 94%, which is superior to the properties of most relative research. Therefore, this work provides a new idea to prepare hydrophilic nanofiber membrane that can be used in the field of oil-water separation.