Porous polyacrylonitrile/graphene oxide nanofibers designed for high efficient adsorption of chromium ions (VI) in aqueous solution

Development of efficient adsorbent with low cost, simple and green production process, and zero secondary pollution for Cr(VI) removal in industrial applications is a great challenge for modern chemical and materials engineering. Here, we developed a new strategy for preparation of porous polyacrylonitrile (PAN)/graphene oxide (GO) nanofibers by simple one-step electrospinning of PAN/GO solution in N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF)/H2O mixed solvent. The resultant porous PAN/GO nanofibers possessed abundant nanopores (5-200 nm) and thus huge Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) specific surface area (164.2 +/- 10.8 m(2) g(-1)) and excellent interfacial compatibility. The porous structure maximized the adsorption function of the doped GO nanosheets for Cr(VI) ions, an unprecedented experimental Cr(VI) ions adsorption capacity of 382.5 +/- 6.2 mg/g was achieved. And the porous PAN/GO nanofibers also exhibited excellent regeneration, after 20 times adsorption-desorption test, the desorption efficiency of the Cr(VI) ions stably maintained more than 75%. More importantly, compared to the current complex chemical synthesis and material structure design methods of Cr(VI) ions adsorbent, the simple one-step electrospinning fully showed great technical advantages for industrial applications including efficient (100% raw material utilization), green (no any harmful chemical by-products), low cost (only PAN and 1.98 wt% GO). Therefore, we suggested that the porous PAN/GO nanofibers will be a promising candidate in industrial applications as a solid adsorbent for Cr(VI) ions adsorption.