Electrospinning, as one of the nano technologies for synthesizing nanofiber, is widely used in filtration, thermal insulation, protective clothing, sensors, conducting devices, and other fields due to its simple equipment, low cost and easy manipulation. The electrospun fibers have small diameter, high porosity, excellent pore interconnectivity, large specific surface area, easy surface modification, polymer chain functionalization and other advantages. Therefore, in this study, electrospinning technology was employed to synthesize multifunctional composite nanofiber membrane(polyacrylonitrile/fly ash/polyacrylonitrile, PAN/FA/AgNO3), which has the ability to remove volatile organic compounds(VOCs) and heavy metals; moreover, the membrane also has excellent antibacterial ability. This research result provides an important reference value for broadening the application of electrospinning technology in the field of air and water filtration in the future.

We designed a series of polymers as antifouling coating materials containing hydrophilic moiety such as polyethylene glycol (PEG) and mussel-inspired dopamine and/or hydrophobic moiety such as polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) and plant-based cardanol moiety. We changed the molar composition of the hydrophilic and hydrophobic moieties in the copolymers and polymer shape (star- vs. linear-shaped polymer) and polymer morphology (block- vs. random copolymer) in order to compare fouling behaviors. These polymer coated membranes exhibited noticeably higher fouling resistance than the bare polysulfone (PSf) ultrafiltration membrane during filtration experiments. We believe that our results will provide insight into the synthesis and fabrication of multi-functional membranes for water treatment applications.

Carbon nanotube(CNT), carbon nanotube-fiber(CNT-fiber) and graphene are representative nano materials which gained much attention by the research community owing to their excellent mechanical, electrical and heat conducting properties surpassing the existing materials by far. The utilization of these properties in construction materials is being actively studied. This paper summarizes the previous studies conducted by the authors regarding the utilization of nanotechnology into construction materials.