Preparation of MnO2 Loaded Hydrothermal Carbon-coated Electrospun PAN Fiber Membranes for Highly Efficient Adsorption and Separation of Cationic Dye

Hydrothermal carbonaceous materials and MnO₂ have been proved to be promising adsorbents to remove organic dyes from wastewater. In this study, flexible MnO₂ loaded hydrothermal carbon-coated electrospun poly-acrylonitrile(AC/MnO₂/PAN) fiber membranes were fabricated by a facile one-step hydrothermal method and activated by NaOH solution. The composite fibers exhibited large adsorption capacity toward cationic dyes and excellent mechanical properties. The adsorption performance can be fitted well with pseudo-second-order model and Langmuir isotherm model. The maximum adsorption for methylene blue(MB), methyl violet(MV) and malachite green(MG) are 1173.27,1106.31 and 1129.89 mg/g, respectively, according to Langmuir fitting. The AC/MnO₂/PAN fiber membrane also showed satisfactory performances for selective adsorption and recyclability. In addition, based on selective adsorption, the AC/MnO₂/PAN fiber membranes that are repulsive to the anionic dye methyl orange(MO) can separate the MB/MO mixture solution by dynamic filtration. Thus, this work not only provides a facile strategy to fabricate large capacity adsorbents, but also demonstrates the potential applications in the dye wastewater treatment field.