Preparation of electrospun silk fibroin/Cellulose Acetate blend nanofibers and their applications to heavy metal ions adsorption

Abstract

Silk fibroin (SF)/Cellulose Acetate (CA) blend nanofibrous membranes were prepared by electrospinning and their heavy metal absorbabilities were examined in an aqueous solution after ethanol treatment. The electrospun nanofibrous membranes were comprised of randomly oriented ultrafine fibers of 100–600 nm diameters. As a result of field emission electron microscope (FEEM), the anti-felting properties of the blend nanofibrous membranes were markedly improved after treatment with 100 % ethanol when SF was blended with CA. Metal ion adsorption test was performed with Cu2+ as a model heavy metal ion in a stock solution. The SF/CA blend nanofiber membranes showed higher affinity for Cu2+ in an aqueous solution than pure SF and pure CA nanofiber membranes. Especially, the blend nanofibrous membranes with 20 % content of CA had an exceptional performance for the adsorption of Cu2+, and the maximum milligrams per gram of Cu2+ adsorbed reached 22.8 mg/g. This indicated that SF and CA had synergetic effect. Furthermore, the parameters affecting the metal ions adsorption, such as running time and initial concentration of Cu2+, had been investigated. The results showed that the adsorption of the Cu2+ sharply increased during the first 60 min, the amount of metal ions adsorbed increased rapidly as the initial concentration increased and then slope of the increase decreased as the concentration further increased. This study provides the relatively comprehensive data for the SF/CA blend nanofibrous membranes application to the removal of heavy metal ion in wastewater.