Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Journal of Polymers and the Environment https://doi.org/10.1007/s10924-020-01895-5 ORIGINAL PAPER TiO 2 /PLLA Electrospun Nanofbers Membranes for Efcient Removal of Methylene Blue Using Sunlight Noor Mohammad 1  · Yomen Atassi 1 Accepted: 18 September 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020 Abstract Globally, 80% of wastewater is still discharged in the environment without being treated at all. Wastewater treatment has become a concern to preserve the ecosystem and to secure the agricultural activities, particularly in regions sufering from water scarcity. This work presents a highly efective method that uses sunlight to rid water of organic pollutants. Titanium oxide, which is known for its photocatalytic properties for the decomposition of organic pollutants, was electrospun with a biodegradable polymer of polylactic acid (PLLA). Nano-fber membranes of PLLA containing TiO 2 were morphologically and structurally characterized using scanning electron microscopy and FT-IR spectroscopy. The wettability of the membranes was investigated and their performance was studied by measuring the adsorption capacity for methylene blue in presence of sunlight. The membranes showed a 100% removal efciency (at pollutant concentration as high as 100 ppm and adsorbent dosage of 1 mL/mg) after exposure to sunlight for 60 min at noon in august at Damascus. This underscores the efectiveness of the environmentally and economically applied method. Keywords Membrane · Electrospinning · PLLA · Organic pollutant · TiO 2 Introduction The rising economic growth in the world has created a prob- lem between economic development and environmental pro- tection, instead of going hand in hand [1]. With the rapid growth of industry and the signifcant population increase, millions of tons of pollutants are dumped into seas and riv- ers which have naturally led to deterioration of water quality and pollution of water resources [2]. Awareness has been raised of the danger of organic pollutants and heavy metal ions that threaten the quality of water around the world [3]. However, the most adopted method in the world to dispose of wastewater is still by discharging it into the environment, which threatens the quality of surface and groundwater [4]. The decomposition of wastes into the environment releases large quantities of life-threatening toxins and emits gases that pollute the air [4]. It is also easy for organic pollutants to penetrate into the ground and afect groundwater quality [4]. Moreover, the presence of substances commonly resulting from the residues of the pharmaceutical industry, even at low concentrations, complicates the problem. As each substance has its own mechanism of action, this makes it difcult to be detected and removed from water through conventional treatment [5]. Dyes are one of the most widely used materi- als in industries such as food, cosmetics and plastics [6, 7]. The use of these dyes frequently threatens the presence of water on the surface of the earth because of the ability of these dyes to access waterways [8]. The greatest risk for industrial dyes is their resistance to environmental condi- tions, making them difcult to biodegrade [8, 9]. In addi- tion, the color produced by these dyes causes signifcant environmental damage in aquatic systems [10]. Some studies have shown that low concentrations of dyes up to 0.005 ppm showed a signifcant risk to the environment [11, 12]. In the light of this, reducing harmful substances from water bodies becomes one of the priorities of environmental research that aims to protect the whole ecosystem and keeps it balanced. Intensive research has been carried out on development of promising ways to control water pollution [13, 14]. In this Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10924-020-01895-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Yomen Atassi yomen.atassi@hiast.edu.sy 1 Department of Applied Physics, Higher Institute for Applied Sciences and Technology, Damascus, Syria