Water contamination
by emerging organic pollutants, such as pharmaceuticals
and personal care products (PPCPs), is becoming more and more serious.
Porous aromatic frameworks (PAFs) are considered as promising adsorbents
to remove the PPCPs. To overcome the limitation of PAFs in their powder
forms for large-scale applications, herein, we proposed a strategy
to covalently anchor PAFs onto electrospun polymer fiber membranes.
Polyaniline (PANI) played the role of aromatic seed layer, which was
coated on the electrospun polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fiber membrane first.
Then, PAF-45 modification was in situ synthesized in the presence
of the PANI-coated electrospun PAN fiber membrane. This study could
make the PAF-based materials be handled more easily and improve the
surface area of electrospun fiber membrane. The obtained composite
adsorbent (PAF-45-PP FM) was applied for the adsorption of three PPCPs:
ibuprofen (IBPF), chloroxylenol (CLXN), and N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide (DEET), which exhibited high adsorption
capacity and good recycling ability. According to the Langmuir model,
the maximum adsorption capacities of PAF-45-PP FM toward IBPF, CLXN
and DEET were 613.50, 429.18, and 384.61 mg/g, respectively. In addition,
after ten adsorption–desorption cycles, the adsorption capacities
toward the three PPCPs decreased slightly. Through an adsorption comparison
test, the adsorption capacity of PAF-45-PP FM almost attributed to
the loading PAF-45. The adsorption mechanism analysis illustrated
that there were pore capture, hydrophobic interaction and π–π
interaction between PPCPs and PAF-45-PP FM. Therefore, the PAF-45-PP
FM can be potential adsorbents to purify water contaminated with PPCPs.
