Fabrication and oil-water separation properties of cerium oxide coated zirconium oxide composite membranes

Abstract

Traditional oil-water separation membranes have high preparation costs and easy environmental pollution during the manufacturing process, so the development of new oil-water separation membranes with low cost and high environmental value is an important topic. In this work, cerium oxide coated zirconium oxide (CeO2/ZrO2) composite membranes are fabricated on cotton fabric by a combination of physical and chemical methods, where CeO2 is prepared using Gossypium sppas a template. The experimental results show that the surface of the composite membrane forms a rough structure with multiple pore channels and the CeO2/ZrO2 composite membrane shows super-hydrophobicity (152.2°) and superlipophilicity. At the same time, the CeO2/ZrO2 composite membrane shows very high separation efficiency (98.26 %−99.53 %) for four oil-water mixtures. After the long-term stability test and cycling performance test, the CeO2/ZrO2 composite membrane shows good separation performance, and the flux of the membrane reaches 34411.9 Lm−2h−1. Meanwhile, the contact angle of the composite membrane is tested for acidic and alkaline environments, and the result shows that it has certain corrosion resistance. This provides an extended strategy to reduce environmental pollution and improve separation efficiency.