Efficient adsorption of oil in water by hydrophobic nonwoven fabrics coated with cross‐linked polydivinylbenzene fibers.

Background: Oil pollution of water causes extensive damage to the environment and human health. Adsorption techniques are environmentally friendly and relatively feasible to treat oil contamination and reclaim oil resources, and it is essential to develop adsorbents that have high adsorption capacity for oil which can be recycled and regenerated conveniently to save money and resources. Results: Hydrophobic nonwoven fabrics coated with polydivinylbenzene nanofibres (HNF‐PDVB) were constructed by a one‐step cation polymerization reaction. The results showed that the optimal concentration of OTS (octadecylsilane) for the modification of nonwoven fibers was 1.22 mL L–1of n‐hexane. The HNF‐PDVB showed relatively good performance in adsorbing oil from water, with adsorption capacity as high as 7.5 g g–1. Freundlich and Dubinin–Radushkevic isotherms fitted well with the experimental data. The kinetic data fitted better to the pseudo‐second‐order and intraparticle diffusion models, and the parameters indicated that the adsorption by HNF‐PDVB involved macropores that contributed to the rapid and high‐capacity adsorption, as well as micropores that resulted in the diffusion of oil in the nanofibres. Thermodynamics studies revealed that the adsorption was spontaneous and endothermic, with an increasing performance when the temperature rose from 10 to 50 °C. The material possessed good stability and the adsorption capacity reduced from 7.5 g g–1 to 6.6 g g–1 after ten cycles of repeated use, recovered by squeezing and ethanol extraction. Conclusion: This work demonstrates that the new hydrophobic nonwoven fabrics have the potential to be used for elimination of pollution from oil wastewater. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]