Upcycling waste polymer membranes through eco-friendly solvent-catalysed valorisation for energy and environmental solutions

A facile pathway of upcycling waste/discarded polysulfone (WPSF) membranes has been proposed using deep eutectic solvent (DES) system composed of choline chloride and ethylene glycol (CC:EG) in 1:1 ratio as a green template. This approach offers a viable solution for addressing polymer membrane waste management challenges while simultaneously promoting feasible method, resource efficiency and economic viability. The WPSF was doped with Mn ions prior to the solvothermal conversion at 200 °C and pyrolysis at 900 °C. The obtained functional porous carbon showed superior adsorption capacity towards Malachite green (MG) (423.72 mg/g), Eriochrome black-T (EBT) (326.79 mg/g), Diclofenac (DCF) (195.31 mg/g), and Ofloxacin (OFX) (121.8 mg/g). The adsorption followed pseudo second order kinetics and well agreed with Langmuir isotherm. Further, the optimised carbon material i.e., Mn-WPSF-01 was used as an adsorptive-based membrane water filtration system, in which a remarkable water flux about 965 L.m⁻².h⁻¹ for different feed streams with outstanding rejection of >90% even after ten cycles of regeneration was obtained. Therefore, Mn-doped carbon materials integrate the advantages of easy preparation, robustness, and effective adsorption performances, as well as good recyclability. Furthermore, the utilized or secondary carbon materials were used as electrode system in supercapacitors after the pyrolysis, where they displayed a specific capacitance of 110.88 F/g at 0.1 A/g of current density with capacity retention 90.85% for about 20,000 cycles with a current density increased to 5 A/g. Therefore, this approach promises to recycle the WPSF via potential applications in water treatment and energy applications through greener way.