Preparation of high strength ultrafine polyvinyl chloride fibrous membrane and its adsorption of cationic dye

The polyvinyl chloride (PVC) ultrafine fibrous membranes were prepared by electrospinning. After solvent and thermal treatments, the membranes were used for the adsorption of cationic dye. The factors, the solvent ratio, the time of solvent treatment and the temperature of thermal treatment, were studied to enhance the mechanical properties of the membranes. The effects of the initial dye concentration and the solution temperature on the adsorption behaviors of the membranes were investigated. The results indicate that, long and uniform PVC ultrafine fibers were steadily electrospun at the PVC concentration of 10 w/v% in the mixture solvents of THF and DMF. The highest tensile strength of membranes reached 7.87 MPa, whereas the value of untreated counterpart was only 0.67 MPa. The equilibrium sorption capacity Q_e increased with the increases of the initial dye concentration and solution temperature. The equilibrium adsorption of the membranes followed Freundlich isotherm and the adsorption kinetics observed Lagergren’s pseudo-second order equation.