Preparation of Nanocarbon-Supported Nanofiber Fabric for Purification of Contaminated Water

In this study, a composite fabric was prepared by combining nanofiber having an extremely high specific surface area with nanosized carbon black (CB) having a solute adsorption capacity to purify contaminated water. The nanofiber fabric made of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) with a mean fiber diameter of 400 nm was used as a base material. The CB particles with an original size of 20 nm were used as adsorbent and dispersed in pure water at the concentration of 10 g/L. Before preparation, the CB particles were oxidized by mixing CB with 70% nitric acid at a ratio of 1 g to 1 mL and heating for 2 hours with agitation. The surface of CB particles became hydrophilic by oxidization, and the size of CB particles became the original one in the dispersion. The nanofiber fabric was immersed in the CB dispersion and shaken for 2 hours. After taking out and rinsing it lightly, CB was immobilized on the surface of nanofibers by heating for 1 hour at 150 °C. The adsorption performances of the different CB particles and the prepared CB-supported PAN nanofiber fabrics were evaluated by the static adsorption test using methylene blue (MB) as an adsorbate. The saturated adsorption amount of the oxidized CB-supported PAN nanofiber fabric was as high as 96.2 mg/g. The dynamic adsorption test of MB was also carried out on the untreated CB-supported PAN nanofiber fabric and the oxidized CB-supported PAN nanofiber fabric. Model equations based on the pseudo-first-kinetic model were derived to analyze the various parameters of the dynamic adsorption. The obtained results suggested a potential application of the oxidized CB-supported PAN nanofiber fabric in the contaminated water treatment field.