The study of adsorption characteristics of electrospun polymer nanofibers for benzenes in water

The adsorption properties of benzene, p-dichlorobenzene and nitrobenzene on polymer nanofibers were studied. Compared with polyacrylonitrile nanofiber, polystyrene (PS) nanofiber presented better adsorption performance. Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption models were used for the mathematical description of adsorption equilibria, and Freundlich isotherms fitted better. Kinetic studies showed that the adsorption of PS nanofiber followed pseudo first-order model. Various thermodynamic parameters such as standard free energy (ΔG), enthalpy (ΔH) and entropy (ΔS) were calculated for predicting the adsorption nature of PS nanofiber for three benzenes, which indicated that the adsorption was spontaneous and a physical process. The regeneration efficiency maintains over 80% after five cycles of adsorption/desorption tests. It showed that PS nanofibers are promising candidates for adsorption and removal of aromatic hydrocarbons from water.