Carbon felt tailored with artificial recognition elements: an effective membrane for bisphenol A adsorption and removal

Adsorption membranes have the widespread and large scale use for pollution removal with promising prospects and better efficacy than powder adsorbents. However, the low adsorption capacity and non-selectivity, reusability hindered its application. In this work, commercial carbon felt (CF) functionalized with molecularly imprinted polymers (CF-MIP) was prepared to address the environmental issues brought by bisphenol A (BPA) in aqueous water. MIPs with low cost, good selectivity, long stability and reusability were tailored on the three-dimensional carbon felt (CF). The parameters including the solvents, cross-linker amount and the polymerization time for the preparation of CF-MIM as well as the selectivity and reusability of CF-MIM have been studied. The Pseudo-second-order kinetic and Langmuir isotherm model presented the most optimal fit to the experimental data in comparison to other models. The CF-MIM had a high binding capacity of 27.81 mg/g and retaining 80% of its original adsorption ability after five reuse cycles. This work will promote the development of functional CF with good selectivity and considerable stability for environmental application. Graphical abstract