Electrospun Polyacrylonitrile Membrane In Situ Modified with Cellulose Nanocrystal Anchoring TiO2 for Oily Wastewater Recovery

Jiqing Lu; Tian Bai; Dong Wang; Haijiao Yu; Qingxiang Wang; Zhaoxuan Niu; Yi Hu; Xueying Liu; Guangping Han; Wanli Cheng

doi:10.1007/s42765-023-00325-0

Advanced Fiber Materials ›› 2023, Vol. 5 ›› Issue (6) :2055 -2068. DOI: 10.1007/s42765-023-00325-0

Research Article

Electrospun Polyacrylonitrile Membrane In Situ Modified with Cellulose Nanocrystal Anchoring TiO₂ for Oily Wastewater Recovery

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¹Key Laboratory of Bio-Based Material Science & Technology of Ministry of Education, Northeast Forestry University, 150040, Harbin, China

^j guangping.han@nefu.edu.cn

^k nefucwl@nefu.edu.cn

Jiqing Lu

received his bachelor’s degree from Beijing Forestry University (China) in 2019. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Wood Science at Northeast Forestry University (supervised by Prof. Wanli Cheng). His research interest focuses on electrospun cellulose-based heterostructured nanofibers and fibrous functional aerogel for atmospheric water harvesting and oily wastewater recovery.

Tian Bai

received his master’s degree from Northeast Forestry University (China) in 2022. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Wood Science at Northeast Forestry University (supervised by Prof. Guangping Han). His research interest focuses on high performance and functionalization of bamboo-based composites.

Dong Wang

received his Ph.D. in Wood Science from Northeast Forestry University (China) in 2023. He is currently a full-time associate professor at the College of Material Science and Engineering of Northeast Forestry University (China). He worked with Prof. Orlando J. Rojas at University of British Columbia from 2021 to 2022 as a visiting student. He has published over 20 refereed papers, with research interests covering biomass-based functional materials and the applications of cellulose-based electrospun nanofiber membranes, hydrogels sensors/electrolytes, and cellulose-based hydrogel battery.

Haijiao Yu

received his bachelor’s degree from Northeast Forestry University (China) in 2022. He is currently a master’s degree candidate in Wood Science at Northeast Forestry University (supervised by Prof. Guangping Han). His research interest focuses on biomass cellulose-based radiative cooling materials.

Qingxiang Wang

received her bachelor’s degree from Northeast Forestry University (China) in 2019. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Wood Science at Northeast Forestry University (supervised by Prof. Guangping Han). Her research interests focus on the development of cellulose-based functional materials and their joint applications as filtering membrane.

Zhaoxuan Niu

received his bachelor’s degree from Northeast Forestry University (China) in 2020. He is currently a graduate student in Wood Science at Northeast Forestry University (supervised by Prof. Guangping Han). His research interests focus on cellulose-based flexible triboelectric nanogenerators and their applications on environmental sensing and energy harvesting.

Yi Hu

received his bachelor’s degree from Northeast Forestry University (China) in 2019. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Wood Science at Northeast Forestry University (supervised by Prof. Guangping Han). His current research is cellulose nanofiber, electrospinning and hybrid aerogel materials, and their multifunctional applications.

Xueying Liu

received her bachelor’s degree from Northeast Forestry University (China) in 2021. She is currently a master’s degree candidate in Wood Science at Northeast Forestry University (supervised by Prof. Guangping Han). Her current research interest is wood-based multifunctional materials.

Guangping Han

received her Ph.D. in Forest and Biomaterials Science from Kyoto University (Japan) in 2001. She is currently a full-time professor at the College of Material Science and Engineering of Northeast Forestry University (China). Guangping worked as JSPS postdoctoral fellow at Shizuoka University (Japan) from 2006 to 2007. She worked at Louisiana State University (USA) from 2003 to 2005 and at FP Innovations-Forintek Division (Canada) in 2008 as a visiting researcher. She has published over 120 refereed papers, with research interests covering renewable biomass-based nanomaterials and their applications.

Wanli Cheng

received his Ph.D. in Wood Science from Northeast Forestry University (China) in 2006 and master’s degree in Wood Physics from Kyoto University (Japan) in 2002. He is currently working as a full-time professor in College of Material Science and Engineering at Northeast Forestry University. He has published more than 100 papers. His research interests focus on wind speed and stress sensing in wood drying with solar energy and air energy, heat and mass transfer, hydrodynamics of wood, and cellulose-based functional membrane.

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Abstract

With the increasingly urgent demand for clean water resources and the growing emission of oily wastewater, high-flux oil/water separation materials with the special wettability are progressively desired. Cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) from renewable biomass has been utilized to fabricate oil/water separation membranes, but it is limited to enhancing mechanical properties. Herein, a wrinkled structure with abundant –OH is constructed on polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofibers via the CNC hybridization process. And then, a super-hydrophilic nano-TiO₂ shell is anchored tightly on the surface of the fiber by wrinkles and –OH. The CNC promotes significantly the in situ growth of TiO₂, with the TiO₂ loading ratio of up to 5.3%. The nano-TiO₂ shell endows the obtained film with super-hydrophilicity and underwater super-oleophobicity, resulting in a visible increase of the permeation flux for the oil/water mixture from 1483 to 11,023 L m⁻² h⁻¹. Interestingly, the hierarchical structure facilitates the demulsification for oil-in-water emulsion stabilized by surfactant, allowing the obtained membrane to exhibit eminent antifouling property and high emulsion permeability of about 3,278 L m⁻² h⁻¹. This design strategy develops next-generation anchors for targeted modification on the non-reactive substrates and provides a novel pathway for fabricating oil/water separation membranes.

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Jiqing Lu, Tian Bai, Dong Wang, Haijiao Yu, Qingxiang Wang, Zhaoxuan Niu, Yi Hu, Xueying Liu, Guangping Han, Wanli Cheng. Electrospun Polyacrylonitrile Membrane In Situ Modified with Cellulose Nanocrystal Anchoring TiO₂ for Oily Wastewater Recovery. Advanced Fiber Materials, 2023, 5(6): 2055-2068 DOI:10.1007/s42765-023-00325-0