Electrospun polyurethane/phytic acid nanofibrous membrane for high efficient removal of heavy metal ions

ABSTRACT

Polyurethane (PU) nanofibers possess large specific surface area and excellent mechanical properties which have been used as the matrix for many applications. Phytic acid is the biocompatible and environment-friendly organic acid with excellent chelating ability of heavy metal ions due to it contains 6 phosphate groups. In this study, the PU/phytic acid nanofibrous membrane has been successfully produced by electrospinning which was used for Pb²⁺ removal. Though phytic acid would improve the hydrophilicity and reduce the mechanical properties to a certain extent, the phytic acid-modified PU nanofibrous membrane still possessed excellent mechanical properties. The PU/phytic acid nanofibrous membrane achieved the highest adsorption capacity (136.52 mg/g) of Pb²⁺ under the condition of the pH of Pb²⁺ solution was 6 and the adsorption temperature and time were 20°C and 10 h which was over 6 times higher the unmodified one’s (21.06 mg/g). These results demonstrated that the electrospun PU/phytic acid nanofibrous membrane could obtain high adsorption capacity of Pb²⁺ and it would achieve the potential application in the fields of the removal of heavy metal ions.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Phytic acid
• polyurethane
• electrospinning
• nanofiber
• heavy metal ions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by the Anhui Province Major Special Projects (No. 16030701088), the Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province (No. 1908085QE225), the Anhui Province University Excellent Youth Talent Support Program Project (No. gxyq2018022), the Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Provincial Education Department (No. KJ2018A0114) and the Scientific Research Fund of Talent Introduction of Anhui Polytechnic University (No. 2018YQQ010).