Rapid decolorization of methyl orange using polyacrylonitrile membranes incorporated with nickel nanoparticles loaded in block copolymer micelles

Abstract

Abstract Decolorization of MO was performed using the catalytic membrane reactors prepared from Ni NPs in PMMA-b-PHEMA micelles (Ni@BCP) which were immobilized on porous PAN (PAN-Ni@BCP) and porous hydrolyzed PAN membranes (hPAN-Ni@BCP). Despite a low loading of Ni@BCP (0.1\u202fwt%) in the catalytic membranes, the decolorizations of 327\u202fppm (1\u202fmM) and 1635\u202fppm (5\u202fmM) MO in water were complete within 2 and 8\u202fmin, respectively. This suggests a highly catalytic activity of the membrane reactors due to a large surface-to-volume ratio of Ni NPs in Ni@BCP and high accessibility of MO to Ni@BCP deposited along pore wall of the membranes. Furthermore, the rate of MO decolorization was improved as increasing the hydrolysis time of PAN membranes, however, with an expense of the permeance. PAN-Ni@BCP and hPAN-Ni@BCP membranes were easily recovered and can be reused for 5 times without a decline of the decolorization performance.