Iron Species-Supporting Hydrophobic and Nonswellable Polytetrafluoroethylene/Poly(acrylic acid-co-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) Composite Fiber and Its Stable Catalytic Activity for Methylene Blue Oxidative Decolorization

Abstract

Polytetrafluoroethylene emulsion was ultrasonically mixed with an extremely spinnable poly(acrylic acid-co-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) solution to get a dispersion with good spinnability, and the obtained dispersion was then wet-spun into water-swellable fiber. Crosslinking agents and iron species were simultaneously introduced into the water-swellable fiber through simple impregnation and water swelling. A composite fiber with Fenton reaction-catalyzing function was then fabricated by sequentially conducting crosslinking and sintering treatment. Due to crosslinking-induced good resistance to water swelling and PTFE component-induced hydrophobicity, the composite fiber showed a highly stable activity to catalyze H2O2 to oxidatively decolorize methylene blue (MB). Within nine cycles, the composite fiber could decolorize more than 90% of MB within one minute in the presence of H2O2 and did not show any attenuation in MB decolorization efficiency. The composite fiber still could reduce the total organic carbon of MB aqueous solution from 18.3 to 10.3 mg/L when used for the ninth time. Therefore, it is believable that the prepared fiber has good and broad application prospects in the field of dye wastewater treatment.

Fe-Immobilised Catechol-Based Hypercrosslinked Polymer as Heterogeneous Fenton Catalyst for Degradation of Methylene Blue in Water

“…It is worth noting that, even though •OH has commonly been found to be the main active species for Fenton reactions [52,58,70], some research has also reported 1 O 2 to be the key species [24,61,71]. The nanoconfinement of the Fe in the porous structure of catechol-HCP-Fe might stimulate the generation of 1 O 2 , as Yang et al demonstrated that 1 O 2 was the preferably predominant species in the nanoconfined structure of Fe 2 O 3 @FCNT, while the •OH was the main active species when the Fe 2 O 3 was anchored on the outer surface of the FCNT [61].…”