Heat-Treated Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) Hollow Fiber Structured Packings in Isopropanol (IPA)/Water Distillation with Improved Thermal and Chemical Stability

In this study, polyacrylonitrile (PAN) hollow fiber membrane (HFM) was heat-treated by muffle furnace to strengthen the thermal and chemical stability. Membrane morphology with different materials was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). It has shown that both porosity and pore size decreased with increasing heat treatment time (<i>t</i> = 0.5, 6, 12 h) and temperature (<i>T</i> = 200, 250, 300, and 350 °C). FTIR was used to explore the change of chemical bonds and found that dehydrogenation, cyclization, and cross-linking reactions occurred in thermal treatment. Compared with original PAN membrane, the hydrophobicity of heat-treated membranes was obviously improved. The heat-treated membrane PAN-250-6 (PAN–temperature–duration) was selected and immersed in various boiling solvents for 24 h to test material stability. PAN-250-6 membrane presented excellent thermal and chemical stability especially in strong solvent, <i>N</i>,<i>N</i>-dimethylacetamide (166.1 °C), whereas original PAN membrane was dissolved completely. For comparison, PAN and PAN-250-6 HFMs were further chosen for packing modules, which were used for the distillation of isopropanol–water solution. During 10 days of operation, module PAN-250-6 showed high separation efficiency with comparatively low height of mass transfer unit (HTU) and larger overall mass transfer coefficients in the ranges of 0.1–0.18 m and 2.5–3.2 cm/s respectively. By analyzing the impact of wetting condition on mass transfer, it was found that membrane resistance should be sensitive and attributed more to the change of the overall resistance. The membrane with better hydrophobicity after heat treatment was more conducive to distillation with HFMs. With superior thermal and chemical stability in distillation, this kind of heat-treated hollow fiber structured packing will be promising in future distillation applictions

Facile Synthesis of Mesoporous Reduced Graphene Oxide Microspheres with Well-Distributed Fe₂O₃ Nanoparticles for Photochemical Catalysis

In this study, we report the fabrication of hollow reduced graphene oxide microspheres with well-distributed Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles (Fe-rGOS) via a spray-drying methodology. l-Ascorbic acid was employed to reduce graphite oxide (GO) and improve velocity of electrons transfer. Because of l-ascorbic acid and the spray-drying procedure, the in situ Fe₂O₃ nanoparticles with a mean size of 5–10 nm were uniformly deposited on rGO support and the rGO migrated to the surface of the drop to form microspheres. The well dispersed nanoparticles not only generated more active sites and interface contact which was beneficial to enhance the stability of catalysts but also acted as pillars between the rGO layers to achieve mesoporous structure. The formed mesoporous frameworks enhanced mass transfer to a large extent and led to the much better catalytic efficiency. Therefore, the prepared Fe-rGOS exhibited a remarkable photocatalytic activity in a wide pH range and superior recyclability with low leaching of iron ions