Fabrication of intra porous PVDF fibers and their applications for heavy metal removal, oil absorption and piezoelectric sensors

Intra porous fibrous membranes have enhanced metal ionic adsorption and oil separation abilities than those of intra nonporous fibrous membrane. In this paper, we prepared highly intra porous fibrous poly (vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) membranes using an innovated water-mediated electrospinning approach. FTIR-ATR and XRD techniques confirmed the conversion of non-polar α-phase to polar β-phase in electrospun membranes. The porous fibrous membrane M–16 had adsorbed oil almost 120% and metal adsorption around 15%, 12%, 5%, 13% respectively for Pb2+, Cd2+, Cu2+ and Zn2+, which are larger than the counterpart of nonporous M–18. The nonporous fibrous membranes have better peak to peak output voltage (Vp-Vp) 2 to 3 times than the porous fibrous membranes (M–16). The results show apparent potential applications in wastewater/oil spill treatment as well as piezoelectric sensors.