According to the United Nations, six billion people on our planet might suffer from water scarcity by 2050. In this scenario, filtration membranes have been considered a promising solution due to their low energy consumption, space-saving nature, and ease of integration with other water treatment processes. In this context, the electrospinning process for fabricating membranes has been considered a low-cost strategy for preparing polymer fibers with good control over fiber size and the ability to incorporate fillers into the membrane’s structure. Thus, electrospun membranes were fabricated from a PLA solution (10 wt.%) in chloroform, with or without 5 wt.% pyrolysis-treated nanoclay. Pyrolysis was performed in a closed reactor with nitrogen gas injection at the beginning to modify C20A nanoclay, varying the isotherm temperature (400 °C and 600 °C) while maintaining the internal pressure and temperature at constant values for 120 min. The resulting electrospun membranes exhibited only thinner fibers, and no beads were detected upon addition of pyrolysis-treated nanoclays. Additionally, there was a reduction in fiber diameter from pyrolysis-treated nanoclay at an isothermal temperature of 400 °C (0.25 ?m), and a slight increase at 600 °C (0.30 ?m), compared to PLA (0.75 ?m) and PLA containing non-treated C20A (0.50 ?m). This reduction could be related to the possible good dispersion of treated nanoclay. This good interaction between the pyrolysis-treated nanoclay and PLA chains can be linked to a slight increase in oxygen percentage on the membrane’s surface due to the formation of oxygen-rich functional groups obtained by C20A nanoclay pyrolysis. Regarding membrane performance, membranes containing pyrolysis-treated nanoclay at 400 °C exhibited a Young's modulus of 8.25 ± 0.82 MPa, with a slight decrease in the sample treated at 600 °C. Similarly, the same trend was observed for maximum strength (MPa), with values of 0.31 ± 0.01 MPa and 0.18 ± 0.03 MPa for treated nanoclay at 400 and 600 °C, respectively, indicating a strong correlation between efficient nanoclay modification and good dispersion. In this sense, the treated nanoclay at 400 °C may have exhibited good interaction and dispersion due to the functional groups on the nanoparticles’ surfaces and their higher surface area
Comissão Organizadora
Pedro Alves da Silva Autreto
Comissão Científica
Ferramenta completa de submissão, avaliação e publicação de anais para eventos científicos.
