Recently,
metal–organic framework (MOF)-based electrospun
fibers have attracted considerable attention as adsorbents for organic
contaminant removal from water. To prepare these fibers, two common
strategies including blending electrospinning and surface coating
are employed. However, fibers obtained from the two strategies still
have some disadvantages, such as adsorption site blockage and unstable
loading. Here, we constructed interconnected mesopores in the electrospun
zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8)/polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fibers
with the assistance of poly(vinylpyrrolidone) to expose more adsorption
sites of ZIF-8 and make ZIF-8 more stable. Moreover, the mesopores
could also enhance the diffusion of contaminant molecules and create
MOF–polymer interfaces in the fiber, which improve the adsorption
rate and adsorption capacity, respectively. The obtained fibers were
used to adsorb antibiotic tetracycline from water. Benefiting from
the mesoporous adsorption channels and the MOF–polymer interface,
porous ZIF-8/PAN fibers showed faster adsorption kinetics than ZIF-8/PAN
blending fibers and larger adsorption capacity than ZIF-8-coated PAN
fibers and ZIF-8/PAN blending fibers. The maximum adsorption capacity
of porous ZIF-8/PAN fibers was 885.24 mg/g, which is close to that
of pure ZIF-8. After 10 adsorption–desorption cycles, the removal
efficiency was still above 97%. In addition, porous ZIF-8/PAN fibers
could act as the membrane adsorbents to dynamically separate tetracycline
with a treated capacity of 9.93 × 103 bed volumes.
These results demonstrate that our prepared porous ZIF-8/PAN fibers
have great potential in antibiotic drug removal.