Ultrahigh-Strength Textile Fiber-Supported Schiff\nBase Copper Complexes for Photocatalytic Degradation of Methyl Orange

An\nultrahigh-strength textile fiber-supported Schiff base copper\ncomplex PEEK-SB@Cu(II) was prepared by chloromethylation and amination\nof a commercially available poly(ether ether ketone) (PEEK) fiber,\nfollowed by Schiff base functionalization and copper acetate chelation\ntreatment. The fibers derived from the preparation stages and catalytic\nruns were characterized using diverse techniques to investigate these\nchanges. Moreover, the PEEK-SB@Cu(II) incorporated with NaBH<sub>4</sub> presented effective photocatalytic activities for fast and exhaustive\ndegradation of methyl orange in an aqueous solution with a degradation\nrate of >99% in no more than 2 min. The corresponding influencing\nfactors were screened to confirm that the degradation process was\nbased on the pseudo-first-order reaction kinetic mode, and a synergistic\nmechanism was proposed to interpret the photocatalytic process. Furthermore,\nthe recyclability and stability of PEEK-SB@Cu(II) were evaluated over\n5 runs and long-term storage for at least 5 months, and the practicability\nof this methodology in the spinning basket reactor was further verified.