Fabrication of hollow electrospun Polypyrrole@Cellulose fibrous membrane for ultrahigh-flux dye removal

Abstract

Membrane technology is a promising method for wastewater treatment, and the balancing between high water flux and high rejection is crucial but extremely challengeable. Herein, an advanced polypyrrole@cellulose fibrous membrane with a hollow structure was prepared through electrospinning followed by a dip-coating process. The sustainable and low-cost cellulose was applied as the raw material while the nontoxic and environmentally stable polypyrrole was chosen as the active layer. Benefiting from the unique hollow structure and the abundant adsorption sites from the polypyrrole, the resulting membrane achieved 99.4 % rejection of anionic Congo red, along with a water flux of 3025.5 L m−2 h−1, which was 4–140 times higher than that of the previously reported membranes. Moreover, it could also efficiently separate cationic methylene blue (a rejection ratio of >96.0 %). This work confirmed the feasibility of hollow electrospun membrane with high dye rejection at ultrahigh water flux, and offered new possibilities to overcome the conflicts between permeation and selectivity in dyeing wastewater treatment.