Applied Surface Science, Vol.367, 126-133, 2016
Fabrication of polystyrene fibers with tunable co-axial hollow tubing structure for oil spill cleanup
Hollow tubing polystyrene (PS) fibers (HFs) with porous shell were successfully fabricated through coaxial electrospinning and selectively dissolving and removing polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) core of the co-axial PS/PVP fibers using C2H5OH at room temperature. The size of co-axial hollow tubing structure (CHTS) and the thickness of shell can be controlled by varying the feed rate ratio of the core solution to the shell solution. The oil-sorption results show that the oil-sorption capacity increases with the increasing of the size of CHTS in the HFs, and the HFs have higher oil-sorption capacities than the porous PS fibers (PFs) without CHTS. It is noticeable that the diesel sorption capacity (66 g/g) of the HFs is approximately 1.74 times as much as that (38 g/g) of the PFs. The motor oil sorption capacity (147 g/g) of the HFs is approximately 1.55 times as much as that (95 g/g) of the PFs. It is suggested that the HFs have a better oil-sorption performance than the PFs, especially for the low viscosity oil, which is contributed to large CHTS and high porosity. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords:Polystyrene fibers;Hollow tubing structure;Co-axial electrospinning;Oil sorbent;Oil-water separation