Simultaneous removal of aniline and antimony (Sb(V)) from textile wastewater using amidoxime-PAN/PLA nanofiber microsphere supported TiO2

[Display omitted] •Amidoxime-PAN/PLA nanofiber sphere supported TiO2 (TiO2@NFS) was synthesized.•TiO2@NFS showed efficient simultaneous removal of hazardous aniline and Sb(V).•Numerous mesopores promoted “dark reaction” adsorption prior to photodegradation.•Amidoxime groups increased adsorption sites for Sb(V). Removal of organic aniline and antimony (Sb(V)) in textile wastewater was usually studied individually in cost-ineffective way. In this study, novel amidoxime-PAN/PLA nanofiber sphere (NFS) supported TiO2 (TiO2@NFS) was fabricated to remove aniline and Sb(V) simultaneously. Results of scanning electron microscope (SEM), fourier infrared spectrometer (FTIR), X-ray diffractometer (XRD) and photoluminescence spectrometer (PL) demonstrated that TiO2 nanoparticles were uniformly dispersed and immobilized on NFS. With 6 h of UV light exposure, aniline and Sb(V) reductions of TiO2@NFS were 86.3% and 78.5%, respectively, both of which were higher than those of plain commercial TiO2 (48.6% and 6.3%). This was attributed to that numerous mesopores in TiO2@NFS could facilitate “dark reaction” adsorption prior to photodegradation for aniline and abundant amidoxime groups could increase adsorption sites for Sb(V). Kinetics for aniline and Sb(V) removal could be well modeled by Langmuir-Hinshelwood and pseudo-second-order equation, respectively, according to high correlation coefficients (R2 greater than 0.90). In addition, TiO2@NFS could well deposit after 10 min of standing, indicating excellent sedimentation performance. Recycling experiment showed good recycling stability of TiO2@NFS. These findings indicated that aniline and Sb(V) were promising to be simultaneously removed from textile wastewater by novel TiO2@NFS via photodegradation coupled with adsorption technology.