Abstract
Increasing oil contaminants in water is one of the major environmental concerns due to negative impacts on human health and aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. The objective of this review paper is to highlight recent advances in the application carbon-based polymer nanocomposite membranes for oily wastewater treatment. Carbon-based nanomaterials, including graphene and graphene-oxide (GO), carbon nanotubes (CNTs), and carbon nanofibers (CNFs), have gained tremendous attention due to their unique physicochemical properties, such as excellent chemical and mechanical stability, electrical conductivity, reinforcement capability, and their antifouling properties. This review encompasses innovative carbon-based membranes for effective oil–water separation and provides a critical comparison of these membranes regarding the permeation flux, wettability, and flux recovery. The current challenges for the successful development of carbon-based nanocomposite membranes and opportunities for future research are also discussed.
Highlights
In recent years, with growing oil production industries, the amount of oil-contaminated wastewater has increased.[1]
Using carbon nanotubes (CNTs), graphene, graphene oxide (GO), and carbon nanofibers (CNFs) leads to a significant improvement in the membrane performance in terms of permeation, antifouling, and self-cleaning properties
Our literature survey showed that CNTs provide higher permeation flux and flux recovery ratio (FRR) compared with other materials
Summary
With growing oil production industries, the amount of oil-contaminated wastewater has increased.[1]. Shi et al.[2] reported the use of free-standing SWCNT network films for separation of a wide range of water-in-oil emulsions, including the surfactant-free and surfactant-stabilized emulsions They reported a very high permeate flux, up to 100,000 Lm−2 h−1. Hu et al.[65] showed that the incorporation of SWCNT films into a hydrophilic surface could enhance separation efficiency and flux for the treatment of oil-in-water nanoemulsions. CNFs and CNTs have similar mechanical strength and electrical properties; CNFs possesses a much larger functionalized surface area compared with CNTs. CNFs can be produced by electrospinning, which creates nanofibrous films with chemical inertness, high porosity, uniform pass-through size, and interconnected open pore structure.[77]. % to have a higher flexibility and toughness They employed electrospinning to fabricate high rigidity carbon-based nanofibrous membranes, and tested them for oil–water separation at a broad range of temperature and pH (Fig. 7b). CNTs provide better mechanical and permeation properties than CNFs, the much lower price of CNFs makes them more favorable materials for commercial production of nanocomposite membranes.[79,80]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
