Full-Biobased Nanofiber Membranes toward Decontamination of Wastewater Containing Multiple Pollutants

Abstract

Herein, we developed a full-biobased nanofiber (NF) membrane for decontaminating water from multiple pollutants simultaneously by using electrospun poly(l-lactic acid) (PLA) nanofibers as scaffold and β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) decorated polydopamine (PDA) as functional coating. The as-prepared β-CD-PDA@PLA NF membranes have good hydrophilicity, underwater oleophobicity, and recyclability, which therefore endow the membrane with effective separation performance for oil-in-water emulsion. The flux and separation efficiency of the membranes are higher than 1500 L·m–2·h–1 and 99.5%, respectively. The β-CD-PDA@PLA NF membranes also exhibited good adsorbability (over 95%) to positively charged water-soluble organic pollutant during filtration owing to their negatively charged nature and high specific surface area. The used membranes, which could be easily recovered by washing with a small amount of solvent and used for the next filtration cycle, have very good durability to decontaminate the wastewater containing toluene emulsion and methylene blue simultaneously for at least 10 cycles.