Preparation and characterization of polypropylene non-woven fabric/ZIF-8 composite film for efficient oil/water separation

A Polypropylene non-woven fabric/ZIF-8 composite film was prepared by in-situ grown method. The loading amount of ZIF-8 of PP non-woven fabric/ZIF-8 composite film increases as the volume of reaction solution and the aging time go up. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to characterize the microstructure of PP non-woven fabric/ZIF-8 composite film. The results show that ZIF-8 nanoparticles were evenly distributed on the PP fiber. The hydrophobicity of PP non-woven fabric/ZIF-8 composite was characterized by water contact angle. The contact angle was up to 137.45°, when ZIF-8 loading amount was 0.85 g·g⁻¹. The material can quickly adsorb floating oil and underwater heavy oil without absorbing water, and the gasoline adsorption capacity of the composite was up to 3612% of its mass and maintains a high oil absorption capacity after it was reused 43 times, which proves that PP non-woven fabric/ZIF-8 composite film is a well recyclable oil/water separation material.