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Polypropylene Nonwoven Fabric@Poly(ionic liquid)s for Switchable Oil/Water Separation, Dye Absorption, and
Yongyuan Ren1, Jiangna Guo1, Qian Lu1
1State and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Novel Functional, Polymeric Materials, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, China.
Abstract:
Pollutants in wastewater include oils, dyes, and bacteria, making wastewater cleanup difficult. Multifunctional wastewater treatment media consisting of poly(ionic liquid)-grafted polypropylene (PP) nonwoven fabrics (PP@PIL) are prepared by a simple and scalable surface-grafting process. The fabricated PP@PIL fabrics exhibit impressive switchable oil/water separation (η>99 %) and dye absorption performance (q=410 mg g-1 ), as well as high antibacterial properties. The oil/water separation can be easily switched by anion exchanging of the PIL segments. Moreover, the multiple functions (oil/water separation, dye absorption, and antibacterial properties) occurred at the same time, and did not interfere with each other. The multifunctional fibrous filter can be easily regenerated by washing with an acid solution, and the absorption capacity is maintained after many recycling tests. These promising features make PIL-grafted PP nonwoven fabric a potential one-step treatment for multicomponent wastewater.
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