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Increasing oily wastewater is produced by various industrial, various oil-water separation technologies and materials have been developed to solve this issue. A facile method is proposed to build multi-scaled and hierarchical membranes with efficiently oil/water separation and photocatalysis. The multi-scaled, hierarchical membrane is fabricated by a hydrophilic polyacrylonitrile (PAN) electrospinning nanofibrous and PAN/TiO2 electrospraying spheres, then the polydopamine (PDA) decorated membrane via in-situ growth. This multi-scaled, hierarchical structure endows the membrane with superhydrophilicity (water contact angle ∼ 0°), and underwater superoleophobicity (oil contact angle ∼152°). And the multi-scaled, hierarchical membrane shows superior water permeation and hydrophilic properties than pure PAN membranes. In addition, the membrane indicates an excellent photocatalytic ability for organic pollutant (∼98 %). And after 5 cycles, the water flux still maintains a high level showing good recyclability. This multi-scaled, hierarchical nanofibrous membrane shows very promising application potentials in oil-water separation and photocatalysis.

Inspired by worm morphology, this study report a low-cost and facile synthesis approach to construct a worm-like P-type flexible thermoelectric material—poly(3,4-ethylene dioxythiophene):p-toluenesulfonic acid (PEDOT:Tos) coated polypropylene (PP) nonwoven fabrics via low-temperature interfacial polymerization. This as-prepared thermoelectric fabric made of fibers with a core-shell structure has an electrical conductivity of 2.19 S/cm and the Seebeck coefficient of 16.15 μV K−1 at a temperature difference of 30 °C. Furthermore, it presents good mechanical and washing stability by bending and ultrasonic test. A thermoelectric device designed of five pairs of thermoelectric material (p-type) and copper wire (n-type) generates 0.512 mV voltage at a temperature difference of 10 °C. This thermoelectric device has a prospect in the application of portable and interactive devices. This study proposes an easy way to manufacture bioinspired thermoelectric fabric with high thermoelectric performance and high potential applications, such as in wearable and flexible sensors.

Oil/water separation has become an urgent issue in environmental protection. Superhydrophilic and underwater superoleophobic membrane is promising materials for effective oil/water separation. In this paper, a novel oil/water separation nonwoven fabric with robust tensile strength and hydrophilic-underwater superoleophobic is successfully fabricated. This nonwoven fabric using low melt point polyester (LPET) fibers with a unique sheath-core structure to incorporate thermal bonding as reinforcement. Moreover, poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) dip-coated is also employed to modify the nonwoven fabrics to acquire the hydrophilic-underwater superoleophobic properties. The mechanical property, microstructure, water and underwater oil contact angle, and oil/water separation properties of PP/LPET nonwoven fabrics are measured, examining the effects of LPET fiber ratio and PNIPAM concentration. The test results show that an improvement in the mechanical properties after increasing the LPET content. The coated of PNIPAM endows the nonwoven fabric with a low water contact angle of from 80 ° to 0 ° (within 8 s), and underwater superoleophobicity with a high oil contact angle of 150 ° . This nonwoven fabric can effective separation oil/water mixture with high permeate flux (∼21850 L ∙ m−2 ∙ h−1) and high separation efficiency (∼99%), solely driven by gravity. This kind of nonwoven fabrics is suggested as a promising candidate for oil/water separation and water purification.

Electromagnetic pollution often interferes with nearby electronic equipment and poses a serious threat to the health of people. There is an urgent need to develop soft and lightweight electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding materials. In this study, a layer-by-layer self-assembly strategy was used implemented to prepare PAN@Ag@PDA@PPy (PAP@PPy) films with unique core-shell and sandwich composite microstructures for electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding. Results showed that the conductivity of the composite films was the highest at 898.72 S/m after in situ polymerization of pyrrole at low temperatures. The mechanical properties of the conductive films also increased from the initial 16.81 MPa to 22.54 MPa. The average shielding effectiveness (SE) and SSE/t of the composite films with two layers reached as high as 23.81 dB and 6764.20 dB cm2 g−1, respectively. This performance was caused originates from by the layer structure of the PAN film and multiple internal reflections from the interconnected core-shells and sandwich microstructures in of the PAP@PPy films. Therefore, this work study gave provides a new novel strategy for fabricating conductive polymer composites (CPCs) with high-performance EMI shielding.

Medical product contamination is a seriously threatens patients’ health. However, few studies on the protective properties of nonwoven medical covers have been conducted. This work aims to develop bioenvironmentally friendly novel Janus polylactic acid (PLA)/low melt polylactic acid (LMPLA) nonwoven medical covers with asymmetric wettability and excellent mechanical, and abrasion resistance while maintaining outstanding breathability performance. The Janus fabrics have a dual structure with hydrophilic PLA/LMPLA nonwoven fabrics and hydrophobic short fluoroalkyl chain polymers/polyurethane membranes. Janus textiles are prepared through needle punch/ hot press bonding manufacturing and spray coating. The subsequent nonwoven fabrics exhibit an outstanding wettability gradient that offers the excellent protective performance of inner-layer liquid absorption to prevent flowback and outer-layer liquid repellence. Furthermore, the coating increases the tensile strength and abrasion resistance (of the fabrics by 2.5 times those of a previously reported PU coating reported in published paper). This kind of nonwoven fabrics is suggested to be a promising candidate for medical covers and health supplies.