Abstract
Electrically conducting nanofibers based on cellulosic materials offer cheap and safe class of materials that can be used for water desalination. In the present work, high conducting cellulose triacetate (CTA) nanofibers containing multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) with very low percolation threshold concentration (0.014 wt%) were produced by electrospinning. Unprecedentedly, a hydrophilic ionic liquid consists of 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([BMIM]Cl) was used to dissolve CTA producing a solution of 10 wt%. This CTA solution was used to engineer both bare CTA nanofibers and CTA nanofibers impregnated with MWCNT. The fabricated nanofibers were characterized by the field emission-scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and the high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM). Both FE-SEM and HR-TEM images showed that the MWCNTs were inserted and uniformly distributed inside electrospun nanofibers. Furthermore, mechanical properties such as tensile strength of MWCNTs loaded-CTA electrospun nanofibers was significantly improved by up to 280 % and 270 % for the Young modulus, when compared with the bare CTA fibers. In addition, the surface properties as the hydrophilicity of electrospun nanofibers membrane was enhanced due to the presence of MWCNTs. Moreover, the electrical conductivity of MWCNT loaded-CTA electrospun nanofibers was greatly enhanced after the implementation of the MWCNTs inside the CTA fiber. The performance of composite nanofiber for water desalination was examined in a lab-scale classic capacitive deionization (CDI) unit, at different concentrations of salt. The obtained data revealed that the electro-adsorption of anions and cations on the surface of MWCNTs loaded-CTA electrospun nanofibers electrodes were monitored with time and their concentration were decreased progressively with time and reaches equilibrium.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
M. A. Shannon, P. W. Bohn, M. Elimelech, J. G. Georgiadis, B. J. Marinas, and A. M. Mayes, Nature, 452, 301 (2008).
V. Calabro, B. L. Jiao, and E. Drioli, Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., 33, 1803 (1994).
W. W. Ho and K. Sirkar, “Membrane Handbook Van Nostrand-Reinhold”, New York, 1992.
R. Bagger-Jørgensen, A. S. Meyer, C. Varming, and G. Jonsson, J. Food Eng., 64, 23 (2004).
P. Podsiadlo, S.-Y. Choi, B. Shim, J. Lee, M. Cuddihy, and N. A. Kotov, Biomacromolecules, 6, 2914 (2005).
P. S. Goh, A. F. Ismail, and B. C. Ng, Desalination, 308, 2 (2013).
A. S. Brady-Estévez, S. Kang, and M. Elimelech, Small, 4, 481 (2008).
S. Gotovac, L. Song, H. Kanoh, and K. Kaneko, Colloids Surf. A-Physicochem. Eng. Asp., 300, 117 (2007).
K. Yang, L. Zhu, and B. Xing, Environ. Sci. Technol., 40, 1855 (2006).
B. Corry, J. Phys. Chem. B, 112, 1427 (2008).
S. Kalia, A. Dufresne, B. M. Cherian, B. Kaith, L. Avérous, J. Njuguna, and E. Nassiopoulos, Int. J. Polym. Sci., 2011, 35 (2011).
W. Helbert, J. Cavaille, and A. Dufresne, Polym. Compos., 17, 604 (1996).
C. T. Laurencin, S. G. Kumbar, S. P. Nukavarapu, R. James, and M. V. Hogan, Recent Pat. Biomed. Eng., 1, 68 (2008).
E. Mirtalebi, M. M. A. Shirazi, A. Kargari, M. Tabatabaei, and S. Ramakrishna, Desalination Water Treat., 52, 6611 (2014).
M. Shirazi, A. Kargari, S. Bazgir, M. Tabatabaei, M. Shirazi, M. S. Abdullah, T. Matsuura, and A. F. Ismail, Desalination, 329, 1 (2013).
S. Subramanian and R. Seeram, Desalination, 308, 198 (2013).
A. Kargari and M. M. A. Shirazi, “Encyclopedia of Energy Engineering and Technology”, Vol. 4, CRC Press, 2014.
M. Lewin, “Handbook of Fiber Chemistry”, Boca Raton: CRC Press LLC, 2007.
M. Gouda, A. Hebeish, and M. Al-Omair, Cellulose, 21, 1965 (2014).
N. Pugazhenthiran, S. Sen Gupta, A. Prabhath, M. Manikandan, J. R. Swathy, V. K. Raman, and T. Pradeep, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 7, 20156 (2015).
N. Grossiord, J. Loos, O. Regev, and C. E. Koning, Chem. Mater., 18, 1089 (2006).
M. U. Sankar, S. Aigal, S. M. Maliyekkal, A. Chaudhary, A. A. Kumar, K. Chaudhari, and T. Pradeep, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 110, 8459 (2013).
V. Vatanpour, S. S. Madaeni, R. Moradian, S. Zinadini, and B. Astinchap, J. Membr. Sci., 375, 284 (2011).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Gouda, M., Abu-Abdeen, M. Highly conductive cellulosic nanofibers for efficient water desalination. Fibers Polym 18, 2111–2117 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12221-017-7564-2
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12221-017-7564-2