MWCNT composite with polymer matrix applied to pollutants retention

Abstract

Pollutants present in water or air can directly affect the human health and at the same time present a negative effect over the entire ecosystem. The development of materials or methods for rejection of contaminants can create mechanisms to mitigate water and air pollution. Absorption and filtration by membrane process are frequently used in the rejection of some pollutants presents in the water or air. The surface area, permeability, flux, are some important properties evaluated for filter mediums. To produce new advanced materials for pollution rejection, electrospinning is a promising methodology which allows the formation of polymeric fibers. These fibers can be conformed to a membrane with a high surface area, good mechanical stability and interconnected porous. These properties make the membrane produced by an electrospinning technique present the potential capacity to deal with some contaminants present in the water or air. The membranes production by electrospinning is very sensitive to many parameters and the choice of the polymeric matrix is crucial to obtain the membrane with the desired properties. PVC (Poly(vinyl chloride)) is one of the most used polymers in the industry, the versatility of PVC allows the formation of electrospun fibers. The incorporation of nanomaterials over the electrospun matrix, such as mult-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), makes possible to improve the membrane properties such as surface area, enhancing its rejection capacity. At this work, it was developed fibers with a polymer blend PVC/PVP conformed by electrospinning. The obtained fibers with an average diameter of 240 nm also was possible to incorporate MWCNTS over the matrix showing an interesting morphology over the membrane.