One-step electrospinning of negatively-charged polyethersulfone nanofibrous membranes for selective removal of cationic dyes

The conventional strategies employed for introducing functional groups onto the surfaces of nanofibrous membranes (NFMs) require complicated steps. Herein, we report a simple strategy for the fabrication of negatively-charged polyethersulfone (PES) NFM5 adsorbent by utilizing one-step electrospinning. Firstly, functional groups were introduced into the electrospinning solution via in-situ cross-linking co-polymerization of sodium styrene sulfonate and acrylic acid in PES solution. Then, the solution was directly used to electrospin into negatively-charged PES NFM5. Sufficient characterization methods were carried out to demonstrate the successful fabrication of the functional NFM5. Batch adsorption experiments for various kinds of dyes with different initial concentrations and pH values were carried out. The results indicated that the NFM5 showed efficient adsorption capacity for cationic dye of methylene blue MB. In particular, binary dye adsorption column experiments were carried out and the membranes exhibited excellent separation efficiency of 98.29% for MB/amaranth mixture. The successful fabrication of such fascinating NFMs adsorbent by using this simple approach may provide new sights into the design and development of adsorptive materials for industrial wastewater treatment with excellent separation efficiency towards mixed dyes. (C) 2017 Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.