Electrospun porous polyethersulfone (PES) fiber mats with high bilirubin adsorption capacity

In this study, different nanoporous polyethersulfone (PES) fiber mats were fabricated for bilirubin adsorption via electrospinning technique with different solvent compositions of tetrahydrofuran (THF) and N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF). The porous structure of the PES fiber mats was investigated via scanning electron microscope (SEM) and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) measurements. The results showed that the PES fiber mats electrospun prepared with THF/DMF (1/3) exhibited the largest surface area of 45.988   m 2 /g and pore volume of 0.3612   cm 3 /g, respectively, as well as the fastest adsorption rate and the largest adsorption capacity (175.98   mg/g) for bilirubin than others. In addition, the pseudo-first order kinetic model was applied to analyze the adsorption process .