The Effect of Surface Treatment/Polymer Type on Formation of 3D-Boron Nitride Foams

Abstract

In this study, the use of boron nitride (BN) foam composites as adsorbents in wastewater treatment using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), polyvinyl butyral (PVB) and polyester (PE) polymers has been investigated. BN powder has been functionalized by Hummer’s and sodium hydroxide (NaOH) methods to facilitate BN binding with the polymer. Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) results show that hydroxyl (-OH) groups are effectively bounded to the BN structure. Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) observation demonstrated the 3D interconnected porous structure of the obtained BN foams using different polymers. It is observed that BN and polymer interaction is better in foams formed with PVA and PVB compared to PE polymers. PVA and PVB structure shows a bridge property to link the layers so that a porous network structure is formed. It has been determined that the foam composite modified with Hummer’s method and using PVB as a polymer (h-BN-PVB-H) reaches an adsorption capacity of 8.843 mg/g in 44 hours and provides approximately 18% Crystal Violet (CV) dye removal. h-BN-PVB-H foam composite removes approximately 26% of Reactive Blue 49 (RB 49) dye with an adsorption capacity of 12.313 mg/g in the first 10 minutes. The 3D BN/Polymer foams showed reasonable absorption capacities for olive oil, cyclohexane and toluene from 200-980 wt% relative to the foam’s dry weight. It shows that the produced composite foams can absorb approximately 2-10 times their own weight.