posted on 2023-12-20, 18:04authored byMahmoud
A. Abdulhamid, Fuat Topuz, Diana G. Oldal, Tibor Holtzl, Gyorgy Szekely
Water scarcity continues to be a major challenge, and
water pollution
is continuously increasing due to population and industrial growth.
Thus, quick solutions must be proposed for a clean water supply. In
this study, rational design and computational tools were used to predict
the binding affinities between 61 organic micropollutants (OMPs) and
an emerging class of catalytic arene–norbornene annulation-based
polyimides (CANAL-PIs) formulated into electrospun nanofibrous membrane
adsorbents. Three intrinsically microporous CANAL-PIs were synthesized
with a Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area of
205–500 m2 g–1. The adsorption
capacity was directly associated with the surface area of the nanofibers
and the binding energy of OMPs. Roxithromycin displayed the highest
adsorption capacity of 118 mg g–1, whereas urea
showed the lowest adsorption capacity of 16 mg g–1. CANAL-PI-based electrospun nanofibrous membranes showed stable
performance and excellent flexibility, robustness, and reusability
over 10 adsorption–desorption cycles, indicating their great
potential for environmental remediation.