Facile fabrication of leaf coral-like structured Cu-Al LDH/PVDF composite adsorptive membrane with enhanced adsorption performance

Abstract In the present study, the novel leaf coral-like structured composite membrane is synthesized from array growth of copper aluminum layered double hydroxide (Cu-Al LDH) onto the polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membrane surface through simple hydrothermal method. The as-prepared Cu-Al LDH/PVDF composite was characterized by FE-SEM, EDS element mapping, XRD, FTIR, AFM, BET and water contact angle (WCA). The dye adsorption of as-synthesized composite was studied for removal Erythrosin B (EB) from aqueous solution. The obtained Cu-Al LDH/PVDF composite membrane exhibits higher hydrophilicity than PVDF membrane. The pseudo-second-order model properly described the adsorption kinetics of the obtained Cu-Al LDH/PVDF composite for EB. Adsorption isotherms for EB by the as-prepared composite were found to be satisfactorily fitted by the Langmuir model. The maximum adsorption capacity of the obtained Cu-Al LDH/PVDF composite was 17.36 mg g−1. The coexisting salts decreased the removal efficiency of EB on Cu-Al LDH/PVDF composite.