Preparation, performance and structure-properties relationship of polyphenylene sulfide/ATP-PS/co-deposition of tannic acid nanocomposites membrane

Modified attapulgite (ATP-PS) grafted with polystyrene (PS) was prepared based on Pickering emulsion polymerization. The characterization of ATP-PS was studied by transmission electronic microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectrometer (XPS), Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR) and contact angle analysis. TEM analysis showed that the surface of ATP-PS was coated with PS organic layer; XPS analysis showed that the proportion of C element in ATP-PS was much larger than that of ATP; FTIR analysis found that ATP-PS had more PS specific functional group peaks than that of ATP; Moreover, contact angle results showed that the hydrophobicity of ATP-PS was significantly improved compared with ATP. The above characterization analysis proved that the modification of ATP-PS was successful. Moreover, polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) hydrophobic porous membrane was prepared with 1-chloronaphthalene and dibutyl phthalate as mixed diluents and ATP-PS as additives. The results showed that 0.8 wt% of ATP-PS had a great effect on the structure and performance of the membrane. With the increasing of the mass proportion of ATP-PS in the preparation of PPS base membrane, the microstructure of PPS based membrane was changed from blocky bicontinuous to spherical granular bicontinuous. When the addition amount of ATP-PS was 0.8 wt% of the total mass of PPS base membrane, PPS based membrane had strong hydrophobicity and organic solvent affinity, and its n -butanol flux could reach 106.9642 L m −2  h −1  bar −1 . The rheological properties of PPS based membrane showed that ATP-PS was well compatible with the PPS, and ATP-PS was beneficial to crosslink between PPS molecular chains, thereby increasing the mechanical properties of PPS based membrane. Phase transition analysis demonstrated that ATP-PS (0.8 wt%) increased the melting temperature (2.34 °C) and crystallization temperature (2.63 °C) of PPS based membrane compared to PPS, thus allowing PPS to complete the phase transition at higher temperature interval during film formation, resulting in a stable microscopic cluster structure. Based on hydrophobic porous PPS membrane, PPS/ATP-PS/TA nanocomposites membrane with ATP-PS selective layer was prepared by co-deposition of tannic acid (TA) and ATP-PS on the surface of PPS membrane. The performance of PPS/ATP-PS/TA nanocomposites membrane was studied, which showed that the n -butanol flux of PPS/ATP-PS/TA nanocomposites membrane was 61.2913 L m −2  h −1  bar −1 . More importantly, the simulated filtration performance of MB dye organic waste liquid (the solvent is n -butanol) showed that the maximum rejection rate of MB dye reached 99.82%. These results demonstrate that PPS/ATP-PS/TA nanocomposites membrane will have potential application in the filtration of organic dye wastewater.