Abstract
To address the problem of ever-increasing oily wastewater management, due to its directional liquid transport property, membranes with asymmetric wettability can be effectively used for emulsion separation. This study reports the synthesis of electrospun polymer–clay nanocomposite nanofibers, using co-polyamide polymer (COPA) and halloysite nanotubes (HA) as filler. The influence of clay content on the morphological, thermal and dielectric properties of the polymer composite nanofiber was investigated comprehensively to address the material characteristics of the developed system. The surface structure analysis and contact angle measurements of the electrospun composite nanofibers confirms the change in surface roughness and wettability when the fillers are added to the polymer. The porosity of the composite electrospun nanofiber membrane was found to be 85% with an oil adsorption capacity of 97% and water permeability of 6265 L/m2 h. Furthermore, the asymmetric wettability-driven oil/water emulsion separation abilities of the as-synthesized membranes shows that the separation efficiency of the composite fiber membrane is 10% improved compared to that of the neat fiber membrane, with improved separation time.
Highlights
A major threat to the natural balance of the ecological environment, especially the aquatic ecosystem, is the oil pollution caused by the food, petrochemical and textile industries [1,2]
The limitations of conventional techniques employed in sewage waste water treatments, such as high energy cost and low separation efficiency have raised the interest of researchers to find more advanced separation mechanisms specially for oil/water emulsions
Based on the above elaborations, for the first time, we report the synthesis of copolyamide– halloysite clay nanotube polymer nanocomposite nanofiber membranes, using n-isopropanol as the solvent
Summary
A major threat to the natural balance of the ecological environment, especially the aquatic ecosystem, is the oil pollution caused by the food, petrochemical and textile industries [1,2]. To overcome the above problems in practical application of nanospun membranes, researchers have focused on tailoring the wettability of the membrane surfaces by combining various functional materials for the efficient separation of oil/water emulsions [16]. Developing super hydrophobic membranes and membranes with asymmetric wettability is a promising area to explore for the oil/water separation application [20]. Wang et al reported modified halloysite nanotubes anchored at the polyvinylidene fluoride/graphene oxide membrane surface via polydopamine adhesive, Polymers 2021, 13, 3710 which exhibited a pure water flux of 1500 L m−2 h−1 under gravity and a separation efficiency of up to 99.5% for oil/water emulsion separation [29]. It is evident that combining the properties of nanoparticles with a large porosity, surface area and membrane can effectively lead to the development of novel multifunctional material for the purification of waste water [30]. Changes in its surface wettability were examined in detail, using contact angle measurements followed by a study of its oil/water separation efficiency
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