Facile 3D Boron Nitride Integrated Electrospun Nanofibrous Membranes for Purging Organic Pollutants.

Dai-Hua Jiang,Wei-Hung Chiang,Chia-Jung Cho,Shih-Huang Tung,Chi-Ching Kuo,Xingke Cai,Pei-Chi Chiu,Loganathan Veeramuthu,Toshifumi Satoh

doi:10.3390/nano9101383

Abstract

Elegant integration of three-dimensional (3D) boron nitride (BN) into the porous structure of a polymer nanofiber (NF) membrane system results in a surface with enhanced absorption capacity for removal. Various BN-based applications were designed and developed successfully, but BN-based absorption systems remain relatively unexplored. To develop a reusable absorption strategy with high removal efficiency, we used a composite of 3D BN and polyacrylonitrile (PAN) to prepare a NF membrane with a porous structure by using electrospinning and spray techniques (BN-PAN ES NFs). The removal efficiency of the 3D BN NF membrane was higher than that of a pure carbon NF membrane. Water pollutants, such as the dyes Congo red (CR), basic yellow 1 (BY), and rhodamine B (Rh B), were tested, and the absorption ratios were 46%, 53%, and 45%, respectively. Furthermore, the aforementioned dyes and pollutants can be completely eliminated and removed from water by heating because of the high heat resistance of 3D BN. The membrane can be recycled and reused at least 10 times. These results indicate that BN-PAN ES NFs have can be used in water purification and treatment for absorption applications, and that they can be reused after heat treatment.

Highlights

Growth of industrial activity and increasing water usage around the world have led to the release of various pollutants, such as toxic heavy metals and organic pollutants into the aquatic environment, in developing countries
Many treatment methods are currently available for removing organic pollutants from water, such as reverse osmosis [6], adsorption [6,7,8,9], chemical precipitation [10], coagulation [11,12], electroplating [13], oxidation–reduction [14], and ion exchange [15,16]
88% of the starting adsorption capacity was maintained after 15 cycles. These results indicated that the potential application of 3D boron nitride (BN) structures as an environment-friendly material for water purification and treatment [29]

Summary

Introduction

Growth of industrial activity and increasing water usage (inevitable water utilities) around the world have led to the release of various pollutants, such as toxic heavy metals and organic pollutants into the aquatic environment, in developing countries. Adsorption-based water treatment methods use materials with a high surface/volume ratio or special manufacturing methods to achieve remarkably high removal of organic pollutants. 88% of the starting adsorption capacity was maintained after 15 cycles These results indicated that the potential application of 3D BN structures as an environment-friendly material for water purification and treatment [29]. Far, no study has combined the high surface-to-volume ratio of ES NFs and the porous structure of 3D BN for application in water purification and treatment. We combined the 3D BN structure and ES NFs to prepare high adsorption material with the novel electrospinning spray coating composite method and demonstrated the dye scavenging applications as a proof of concept

Materials

Synthesis of Three-Dimensional Boron Nitride Precursor

Findings

Regulation of Spray Coating