Evaluation of Electrospun Self-Supporting Paper-Like Fibrous Membranes as Oil Sorbents

Abstract

Presently, adsorption/absorption is one of the most efficient and cost-effective methods to clean oil spill up. In this work, self-supporting paper-like fibrous membranes were prepared via electrospinning and carbonisation at different temperatures (500, 650 or 800 °C) by using polyacrylonitrile/polymethylmethacrylate blends with a different mass ratio of the two polymers (1:0, 6:1 or 2:1). After morphological and microstructural characterisation, the as-produced membranes were evaluated as sorbents by immersion in vegetable (sunflower seed or olive) and mineral (motor) oil or in 1:4 (v:v) oil/water mixture. Nitrogen-rich membrane carbonised at the lowest temperature behaves differently from the others, whose sorption capacity by immersion in oil, despite the great number of sorbent and oil properties involved, is mainly controlled by the fraction of micropores. The encapsulation of water nanodroplets by the oil occurring during the immersion in oil/water mixture causes the oil-from-water separation ability to show an opposite behaviour compared to the sorption capacity. Overall, among the investigated membranes, the support produced with 2:1 mass ratio of the polymers and carbonisation at 650 °C exhibits the best performance both in terms of sorption capacity (73.5, 54.8 and 12.5 g g−1 for olive, sunflower seed and motor oil, respectively) and oil-from-water separation ability (74, 69 and 16 for olive, sunflower seed and motor oil, respectively).

Interplay of plastic pollution with algae and plants: hidden danger or a blessing?

“…The presence of oxygen plays another strong role in the biodegradation rate due to the microbial enzyme activity (Thakur et al, 2018). The decomposition rate is also highly affected by environmental conditions (Endres et al, 2017, Nakasaki et al, 2006, which often results in incomplete mineralization of the polymers (Folino et al, 2021). The several kinds of soil environments influence it in nature, which have different characteristics, different microorganisms' population, as well the different pH.…”

Photocatalytic Degradation of Methylene Blue Dye by Electrospun Binary and Ternary Zinc and Titanium Oxide Nanofibers

“…Electrospinning (ES) is a simple and cost-effective technique widely utilized for the growth of high aspect-ratio and surface-area (organic, inorganic, and hybrid) nanostruc-tures with different morphologies [37][38][39] used in a great variety of applications ranging from energy conversion and storage, to biomedicine, gas sensing, and water remediation [37,[40][41][42][43]. ES scalability and the availability of commercial machineries capable of producing fibrous sheets of up to 300-600 m 2 in size make it a suitable technique for the production of NF catalysts on an industrial scale.…”