High mechanical CuO@stainless steel mesh for continuous and durable separation of surfactant-stabilized viscous and light/heavy-mixed oily emulsions in liter-scale

Abstract

High mechanical filtration membranes, which can continuously and durably separate surfactant-stabilized viscous and light/heavy-mixed oily emulsions with high separation efficiency, are highly desirable for existing oily wastewater remedy. Herein, an all inorganic FM, by decorating CuO microrods standing on stainless steel mesh (SSM), has been designed to fulfill this challenge. Our FM exhibits both superwetting surface and high mechanical performance (tensile strength: ∼250 MPa). Furthermore, driven by the robust thermal stability of our FM (≥ 800 °C at oxygen atmosphere), combustion (<10 s) via alcohol flame, can be used to solve the oil fouling issue without deteriorating their original filtration performance. Prompted by these advantages aforementioned, our FM displays high oil rejection efficiency (>99 %) towards diverse surfactant free/−stabilized oil-in-water emulsions with good flux (> 10,500 L m−2 h−1 bar−1) via dead-end setup in millilitre-scale. Besides, continuous and durable separation of surfactant stabilized viscous (soybean oil) and light (hexane)/heavy (dichloroethane)-mixed oil/water emulsions in liter-scale with good cycling stability and same separation efficiency compared to these of emulsions via dead-end setup in millilitre-scale aforementioned, has been also achieved. These outstanding functions make our FM hold excellent potential for practical complex oily wastewater purification.