Ammonia Adsorption Characteristic of Reusable PAN/zeolite Fibers Made by Electrospinning

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Generally, ammonia occurs from agricultural waste disposal. Ammonia is known as a harmful substance to the human body and has a bad influence such as eutrophication on the ecosystem. It is possible to remove the ammonia by ammonia adsorption method using natural zeolite, without external influence. However, due to the natural zeolite shape, it is hard to reuse. METHODS AND RESULTS: Electrospinning method can produce fiber with constant diameter. Moreover, electrospinning method has no limitation for selecting the material to make the fiber, and thus, it is valuable to reform the surface of adsorbent. In this study, reusable membrane was made by electrospinning method. The highest removal efficiency was shown from the membrane with 20% of zeolite included, and it has been verified that it is possible to reuse the membrane through chemical treatment. The highest ammonia removal efficiency was about 80%. CONCLUSION:In this study, ammonia adsorption characteristics of zeolite fibers were studied. Electrospinning method can produce zeolite fiber with even distribution. Ammonia can be removed efficiently from ion exchange ability of the natural zeolite. The result of adsorption isotherm indicated that both Freundlich model and Langmuir model provided the best fit for equilibrium data. And study on desorption has demonstrated that the ion exchange from zeolite was reversible when 0.01 M NaCl and KCl solution were used.