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Supercritical Phase Inversion to Produce Photocatalytic Active PVDF-coHFP_TiO2 Composites for the Degradation of
Mariangela Guastaferro1, Lucia Baldino1,2, Vincenzo Vaiano1
1Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Salerno, Via Giovanni Paolo II, 132, Fisciano, 84084 Salerno, Italy.
Abstract:
TiO2-loaded poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) (PVDF-coHFP) membranes were produced by supercritical CO2-assisted phase inversion. Three different TiO2 loadings were tested: 10, 20, and 30 wt% with respect to the polymer. Increasing the TiO2 amount from 10 wt% to 20 wt% in the starting solution, the transition from leafy-like to leafy-cellular morphology was observed in the section of the membrane. When 30 wt% TiO2 was used, the entire membrane section showed agglomerates of TiO2 nanoparticles. These polymeric membranes were tested to remove Sudan Blue II (SB) dye from aqueous solutions. The adsorption/photocatalytic processes revealed that membrane morphology and TiO2 cluster size were the parameters that mainly affected the dye removal efficiency. Moreover, after five cycles of exposure of these membranes to UV light, SB removal was higher than 85%.
