Abstract
Electrospinning was performed with a blend of commercially available poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) and a sulfur-rich copolymer based on poly(sulfur-statistical-diisopropenylbenzene), which was synthesized via inverse vulcanization. The polysulfide backbone of sulfur-containing polymers is known to bind mercury from aqueous solutions and can be utilized for recycling water. Increasing the surface area by electrospinning can maximize the effect of binding mercury regarding the rate and maximum uptake. These fibers showed a mercury decrease of more than 98% after a few seconds and a maximum uptake of 440 mg of mercury per gram of electrospun fibers. These polymeric fibers represent a new class of efficient water filtering systems that show one of the highest and fastest mercury uptakes for electrospun fibers reported.
Highlights
Water pollution control is one of the current environmental problems demanding the urgent development of new types of materials for efficient, practical, and inexpensive ways to remove toxic agents, such as heavy metals
Adsorption stands out as a low-cost, simple process when compared to other procedures of mercury removal
Electrospinning produces polymer fibers from solutions with diameters ranging from several micrometers down to a few nanometers from a simple setup
Summary
Water pollution control is one of the current environmental problems demanding the urgent development of new types of materials for efficient, practical, and inexpensive ways to remove toxic agents, such as heavy metals. Current techniques for mercury removal from aqueous systems include chemical precipitation [4], ion-exchange [5,6], adsorption [7,8], and membrane filtration [9]. Current commercial adsorbents possess low binding affinities for mercury or low surface areas. To produce an ideal adsorbent, fabrication of a material with both high surface area and high affinity for mercury is required. An inexpensive and versatile technique for producing high surface area materials is electrospinning, which has received a persistent, growing interest over the last two decades due to its potential in a multitude of applications, including catalysis [11], energy storage [12], biosensing [13], drug delivery [14], and membranes [15]. Electrospinning produces polymer fibers from solutions with diameters ranging from several micrometers down to a few nanometers from a simple setup
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