Clay-based nanofibrous membranes reinforced by multi-walled carbon nanotubes

摘要

Novel flexible clay (attapulgite, AT)-based nanofibrous membranes (NFMs) were reinforced by incorporating the carboxylic multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Herein, CNTs were successfully introduced into the fibrous network structure consisting of AT nanofibers and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) chains via a facile method similar to the papermaking technology. The effects of CNT content on the internal structure, mechanical and surface properties of the reinforced NFMs were systematically investigated. Due to the formation of multiple interfacial interactions including the entanglement force and hydrogen bonds among CNT (-COOH), AT (-OH) and PVA (-OH), the obtained NFMs containing 0.5 wt% CNTs showed a 74% increase in tensile strength, 27% increase in modulus and 110% improvement in toughness over neat NFMs. Three cyclic separation measurements revealed that the optimized NFMs exhibited high separation efficiency (similar to 100%), high flux recovery ratio (similar to 98%) all the time, when applied in treatment of oily wastewater and protein separation.