Preparation of keratin/PET nanofiber membrane and its high adsorption performance of Cr(VI)

© 2019 Elsevier B.V. In this study, we prepared wool keratin/PET composite nanofiber membrane to adsorb the Cr(VI) in acidic solution due to its strong adsorption ability. The adsorption ability of the composite membrane with different ratios of keratin to PET was investigated. The optimum adsorption ability can be obtained when the keratin concentration was 50% in the solution with a pH value of 3. With the higher content of keratin, the membrane possessed higher hydrophilicity, larger pore ratio, and larger extent amino protonation. The maximum adsorption ability of the composite membranes was 75.86 mg/g, while that of the pure PET nanofiber membrane was 27.27 mg/g. The FTIR and XPS analysis results demonstrated that both the disulfide bond of the keratin and the amino were involved in the adsorption process. The process was achieved by the electrostatic adsorption of the amino and the redox reaction of disulfide bond in cystine oxide. The removal property of the electrospun keratin/PET composite membrane was 75.86 mg/g.