Preparation of composite fibrous membranes based on Ethyl Cellulose with enhance hydrophobicity for oil adsorption

Abstract

Oil contamination in water affects living organisms and the environment. To adsorb oil spills, ethyl cellulose (EC) is a promising polymer for use as oil adsorbent due to its non-toxicity, environmental friendliness, low cost, hydrophobicity, biodegradability, and biocompatibility. In this work, fibrous membranes of EC are prepared by electrospinning with a variation in several parameters to determine an optimal preparation condition of EC membranes. Homogeneously fine EC fibers can be made by using a chloroform:ethanol volume ratio of 60:40, 10% w/v of EC concentration, and 15 kV of applied voltage. Oil adsorption capacity of the EC membranes can be improved by increasing membrane hydrophobicity. This is facilely performed by addition of MoS2 platelets into the EC membranes. Characterizations of the EC and composite membranes by X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and dynamic mechanical analysis indicate that the MoS2 does not significantly affect crystalline and chemical structures of the EC. Also, the EC matrix and MoS2 do not show a significant interaction. The MoS2 with a loading content of 3 phr is able to increase water contact angle of the polymer membranes from 127.7° to 138.6°, which is contributable to an increase in adsorption capacity from 17.86 to 27.42 g/g for soybean oil, equivalent to 53.33% enhancement compared with the neat-EC membranes. In the presence of MoS2, electrospun fibers are smaller as shown by scanning electron microscopy result. This may lead to a higher sorption area in the composite membranes for a larger amount of adsorbed oil. In addition, the composite membrane shows its recycling performance in adsorbing soybean oil for at least 5 times, the adsorption capacities of the first 4 cycles are still higher than 50% compared with the initial value. The developed composite membranes based on EC are potential candidates to replace one-time-use adsorbents for use in oil adsorption application.