Hydrophilic SPE/MPTES-PAN electrospun membrane prepared via click chemistry for high efficiency oil–water separation

There are various methods to introduce functional groups into the membrane surface to get oil–water separation performance, but most of them involve complicated reaction conditions and processes. Inspired by click chemistry, we developed a simple method to fabricate click chemistry-modified membranes. Firstly, polyacrylonitrile and γ-mercaptopropyltriethoxysilane were mixed together to prepare nanofiber membrane by electrostatic spinning method. Secondly, 3-[N,N-dimethyl-[2-(2-methylprop-2-enoyloxy)ethyl]ammonium]propane-1-sulfonate inner salt was grafted onto the membrane surface by thiol-ene click chemistry. The obtained modified membrane displays hydrophilicity and underwater oleophobicity. Driven by gravity at 1 kPa, the pure water flux of the membrane reached 787 L/(m2·h). Importantly, it also demonstrates good antifouling properties with a flux recovery rate of 94%, which is superior to the properties of most relative research. Therefore, this work provides a new idea to prepare hydrophilic nanofiber membrane that can be used in the field of oil–water separation.