Self-supporting flexible metal-organic framework-based electrospun nanofibers membrane for efficient removal of tetracycline from aqueous solutions

Self-supporting flexible zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 nanoparticles/polyacrylonitrile nanofibers membrane (ZIF-8/PANNM) was designed and constructed via facile electrospinning, which was used as composite adsorbent to remove tetracycline hydrochloride (TC) from water. Owing to self-supporting features, nanofibers membranes can be easily taken out after the removal of TC from the wastewater and therefore no obvious secondary pollution is introduced into the solution. ZIF-8/PANNM with one-dimensional nanofiber as building unit has good flexibility. The adsorption capacity achieved by ZIF-8/PANNM can reach up to 255.92 ​mg ​g−1. The TC adsorbed onto ZIF-8/PANNM accords well with the pseudo-second-order model and the Langmuir model, indicating that adsorption occurs via chemical and monolayer adsorption mechanisms. More importantly, after five adsorption-desorption cycles, the adsorption efficiency of ZIF-8/PANNM for TC is still above 97%, indicating its excellent reusability. We believe that the simple and easy preparation method and good adsorption performance make ZIF-8/PANNM have good practical application prospects in water purification.