Three-Dimensional Polymer Nanofiber Structures for Liquid Contamination Adsorption

Abstract

Green amphiphilic decontamination materials with high-performance, ultrafast, and highly efficient liquid contamination adsorption are of great significance to environmental protection. In this work, an ethylene-vinyl alcohol copolymer with both hydrophilic and hydrophobic chain fragments was selected as the matrix (amphiphilic adsorption), a topological grafting structure was designed for chain entanglement (to enhance fiber integrity), and then the aggregate structure was controlled with a soft dispersed phase (to facilitate fiber formation). Finally, environmental-friendly supercritical CO2 foaming is used to obtain the three-dimensional (3D) polymer nanofiber structures (to increase fiber-structure porosity) for liquid contamination adsorption. The strategy takes full advantage of the synergistic effect from the multi-scale structure, including the random copolymer structure (repeating unit scale in the molecular chain), topological structure (molecular chain scale), microphase separation structure (aggregate scale), and nanofiber structure (porous scale). The obtained adsorption amphiphilic material adsorbed liquid contamination with a high efficiency of 64.78 g/g and a large adsorption rate of 1.14 g/g·s–1 (kinetic constant) for carbon tetrachloride, attributing to its unique 3D polymer nanofiber structure with a large specific surface area and a large amount of porous space to adhere and to be filled by liquid contamination, respectively. This work provided a strategy for the green preparation of environment-friendly and high-performance decontamination materials.

Dually Sulphophilic Chromium Boride Nanocatalyst Boosting Sulfur Conversion Kinetics Toward High‐Performance Lithium–Sulfur Batteries

“…Oxidized B species such as B 2 O 3 also exist, which is commonly observed in the literature. [ 19 ] These results confirm the successful acquisition of CrB based on mild‐temperature thermal synthesis. The alloy structure well inherits the metallic character that would greatly benefit the electron conduction, while the as‐established local chemical polarity is expected to impose favorable chemical affinity to LiPS for achieving reliable sulfur immobilization and catalyzation.…”

Ultrahigh Electromagnetic Wave Transmitting Polyphenylene Sulfide Microcellular Foams Based on Molecular Structure Design for 5G Communication

“…After cross-linking, both G ′ and G ′ ′ increase significantly at the low-frequency region but present little difference at the high-frequency region. − The full spectra of the G ′ curve almost appear as a platform, indicating that the thermal oxidation treatment forms long branches and cross-linking points in PPS macromolecular chains. Owing to the three-dimensional (3D) cross-linking network, cross-linked PPS shows a “gel-like” or “solid-like” response. − In Figure c, tan δ shows a downward trend for untreated PPS, indicating that the system has a high contribution to viscosity and a low contribution to elasticity. After cross-linking, the tan δ decreases significantly at the low-frequency region, indicating that the cross-linked network structure greatly promotes the system’s contribution to elasticity, which is often used to predict the foamability of polymers.…”

Synthesis and Characterization of a Cationic Micro-crosslinking Polymer and its Application as a Fluid Loss Reducer in Water-based Drilling Fluids

“…And when the addition of ENAD in BF was increased from 0 to 2.0wt% and 3.0wt%, YP increased from 1.5 mPa-s to 2.5 mPa-s before aging. Due to the lamellar structure of bentonite, ENAD is dispersed between the bentonite lamellar layers, and the unique micro-crosslinking structure enhances the structural strength of the dispersed medium, which further enhances the resistance to the flow of water molecules between the dispersed phases [28] . This in turn leads to a small increase in YP.…”