Crown Ether Grafted Graphene Oxide/Chitosan/Polyvinyl Alcohol Nanofiber Membrane for Highly Selective Adsorption and Separation of Lithium Ion

Abstract

Nanofiber membranes were successfully prepared with crown ether (CE) functionalized graphene oxide (GO), chitosan (CS), and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) by low-temperature thermally induced liquid–liquid phase separation. The physical and chemical properties and adsorption performance of nanofiber membrane were studied through SEM, FT-IR, XRD, and static adsorption experiments. The results show that the specific surface area of the nanofiber membrane is as high as 101.5 m2∙g−1. The results of static adsorption experiments show that the maximum adsorption capacity of the nanofiber membrane can reach 168.50 mg∙g−1 when the pH is 7.0. In the selective adsorption experiment, the nanofiber membrane showed high selectivity for Li+ in salt lake brine. After five cycles, the material still retains 88.31% of the adsorption capacity. Therefore, it is proved that the material has good regeneration ability.

Keywords

• crown ether grafting
• selective adsorption
• composite membrane