OLEOPHILIC NANOFIBROUS MATS OF CELLULOSE ACETATE.

The threat of oil pollution increases with the expansion of oil exploration and production activities and the industrial growth worldwide. Effective treatment and remediation of oily wastewater is a critical issue for the protection of the environment. Although oil particles can efficiently be removed by advanced technologies, the treatments are usually expensive and difficult to maintain. Use of sorbents is a common practice to dealing with an oil spill. A series of non-woven cellulose acetate (CA) nanofibrous mats with a 3D fibrous structure were successfully synthesized in this work by a novel high-throughput electrospinning process from CA / acetic acid-acetone solutions. The 15.0% CA electrospun mat exhibit hydrophobic surface properties (as opposed to as-spun CA films). The mats are superior oil sorbents (many times higher oil sorption capacity) than the best commercial sorbent (PP). Furthermore they show superb buoyancy on the water-both the dry-mats and the oil-saturated ones. In addition, CA is biodegradable, easily available, and allows for the recovery of the collected oil. Thus the high-through-put electrospun mats are excellent candidates as oil sorbents. This technology is discussed in the context of all recent patents in the field of selective oil absorbents.