Biomass-Based Synthesis of Green and Biodegradable Molecularly Imprinted Membranes for Selective Recognition and Separation of Tetracycline

Aggravating environmental problems have driven the unprecedented development of sustainable materials. Treatments of environmental pollutants with biomass-based sustainable materials are catching attention of more researchers. In the present work, a biomass-based strategy was developed to prepare sustainable molecularly imprinted nanocomposite membranes (S-MINMs). Based on this strategy, biomass-activated carbon nanoparticles (ACNPs) as the porous filler were integrated into the porous cellulose acetate (CA)/chitosan (CS) hybrid membranes to synthesize renewable and easy degradable basal membranes. The specific recognition sites were fabricated from simple free radical polymerization method, and using methacrylic acid (MAA) and acrylamide (Am) as functional monomers, we obtain improved adsorption capacity on tetracycline (TC, template molecule). Performance of S-MINMs was evaluated by adsorption isotherm, adsorption kinetics, perm-selectivity, reusability and biodegradability. Results indicated that the as-prepared S-MINMs not only exhibited desirable biodegradability, but also possess superior adsorption and separation performance toward TC (15.99mg g-1 for adsorption capacity and 4.91 for perms-selectivity factor). The method developed here shows great potential for development of sustainable membranes for selective separation of various pollutants.