Polyvinyl alcohol nanofibrous mat impregnated with ClCNTs/Fe2O3 nanocomposite for absorption of diesel oil in water

Abstract Oil contamination is one of the main sources of water pollution in the world. In this study, a sorption material that showed great promise as an absorbent for diesel oil in aqueous solution was developed. Chlorinated carbon nanotubes (CNTs) previously synthesized using a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method were loaded with iron oxide nanoparticles via a co-precipitation method. The sorption materials were prepared by embedding ClCNTs/Fe₂O₃ nanocomposite into a polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) polymer matrix via electrospinning. The PVA mat containing only ClCNTs was also prepared for comparison and the maximum sorption capacity of 9.7 g g⁻¹ was obtained. The optimum concentration of ClCNTs/Fe₂O₃ nanocomposite that gave uniform, and well-distributed nanofibers was 0.5 wt%. Crosslinking the PVA/ClCNTs/Fe₂O₃ nanofiber mat with glutaraldehyde (GA) resulted in increased absorption capacity for oil of ∼ 9.4 g g⁻¹ in comparison with an absorption capacity of ∼ 7.6 g g⁻¹ attained with a pure nanofiber mat. The crosslinked nanofiber mat remained stable even after 60 min of oil absorption which proves that crosslinking assisted in increasing the affinity of PVA for oil by reducing the amount of OH groups through acetal formation making PVA less soluble to water. The oil sorption capacity of the prepared materials was not maintained even after two cycles indicating poor reusability.