The structure and property evaluation of electrospun porous fibrous membrane based on the copolymer of styrene and butyl acrylate

The oils leaked into water seriously threaten human health, thus it is urgent for scientific researchers to treat the pollution caused by oils. In this work, poly (styrene-co-butyl acrylate)-based fibrous membranes which were able to absorb and separate oils from water were prepared via electrospinning. Their thermal properties and crystallization behaviors were characterized by thermogravimetric analyzer, differential scanning calorimetry, and X-ray diffractometer. Field emission scanning electron microscopy was employed to observe their pores, and a gravimetric method was adopted to calculate their porosity. Water contact angle in air and oil contact angle in water were used to describe the hydrophobicity of the prepared fibrous membranes. Finally, the fibrous membranes were applied to the fields of oils absorption and separation. The results showed that the absorbencies of the fibrous membranes for unmoving pure oil were higher than 50 g/g, and the maximum absorbency even reached 91 g/g; additionally, the fibrous membranes also absorbed moving oil from the mixture of oil and water. The floating oil was completely separated from water by the used fibrous membrane after separation apparatus ran for 100 min.