(662g) Upcycled Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) Electrospun Nanofibers Fabricated from Waste PVC for Water Treatment

In recent decades, the increased use of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in industries and households has led to a surge in PVC waste. PVC is one of the most environmentally harmful plastic that releases toxic chlorine-based chemicals in water, air, and food chain. Upcycling of PVC is difficult owing to a high amount of chlorine and hazardous additives it contains. We report upcycling of PVC-based products as a waste material to a high-value-added product such as membranes by electrospinning technique. In this project, electrospun membranes were fabricated from waste PVC pipe and PVC pool float and their physicochemical properties and performance were compared to membranes produced from commercial PVC powder. The casting solutions for PVC pipe, pool float and commercia PVC powder were prepared by dissolving 15wt.% of each in tetrahydrofuran (THF) and N, N-dimethylformamide (DMF) in a volume ratio of 2:3 respectively. The casting solutions were were electrospun for 6h and membranes were collected on the aluminum foil. The morphology and composition of the membranes was studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) which revealed thin and beaded fibers having average diameters of 200.52nm for PVC pipe membranes; in contrast PVC pool float and commercial PVC membranes possessed thicker beadless fibers with average diameters of 281.88nm and 517.42nm respectively. However the membrane generated from the PVC pipe showed thinner thickness (0.038mm) compared to PVC pool float (0.053mm) and commercial PVC (0.065mm) membranes. EDAX studies showed a high carbon and chlorine content in all three membranes. In addition, calcium carbonate () was found in PVC pipe membranes while was negligible in membranes electrospun from PVC pool float and commercial PVC powder. The Young’s modulus of electrospun fibers from the upcycled pipe was 73.32 MPa which was significantly higher than that of upcycled pool float (15.63 MPa) and commercial PVC (high modulus: 56.21 Mpa and low modulus:11.83MPa) membranes showing that pipe membrane is rigid while pool float and commercial PVC membranes are relatively elastic. Finally, the adsorption capability of these three membranes was studied for the removal of cadmium (II) (Cd²⁺) from water and their performance were anlysed based on the physichochemical properties of each membrane.