Electrically Conductive Electrospun Polymeric Mats for Sensing Dispersed Vegetable Oil Impurities in Wastewater

This paper addresses the preparation of electrically conductive electrospun mats on a base of styrene-isoprene-styrene copolymer (SIS) and multiwall carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and their application as active sensing elements for the detection of vegetable oil impurities dispersed within water. The most uniform mats without beads were prepared using tetrahydrofuran (THF)/dimethyl formamide (DMF) 80:20 (v/v) as the solvent and 13 wt.% of SIS. The CNT content was 10 wt.%, which had the most pronounced changes in electrical resistivity upon sorption of the oil component. The sensors were prepared by deposition of the SIS/CNT layer onto gold electrodes through electrospinning and applied for sensing of oil dispersed in water for 50, 100, and 1000 ppm.