Abstract
SummarySeparation of oil/water mixtures has been one of the leading green technologies for applications such as oil recovery and water purification. Conventional methods to separate oil from water are based on phase separation via physical settlement or distillation. However, challenges still remain in the effective extraction of micron-sized oil droplets dispersed in water, in which case gravity fails to work as separating force. Here, we conformably decorate porous titanium (average pore size 30 μm) with superhydrophilic nanotubes. The resulting three-dimensional superhydrophilic micro channels thus provide a driving force for oil-water separation at the nanotube/emulsion interface, enhancing significantly the water infiltration rate. The high efficiency (>99.95%, with oil droplets of average diameter 10 μm) and strong mechanical durability make the structure a reusable oil/water separator. Our findings pave the way for future applications of oil-in-water emulsion separation, which can be readily scaled up for massive demulsification.
Highlights
Separation of oil from water has been an issue that has developed along with the development of modern technology (Li et al, 2013; Zhou et al, 2018)
As confirmed by 3D micro-computed tomography (CT) in Figure 1A, pore sizes in the foam matrix are of the order of 20–30 mm
Open-ended TiO2 nanotube arrays (TNTAs) are formed on the titanium foam by anodization in ethylene glycol solution
Summary
Separation of oil from water has been an issue that has developed along with the development of modern technology (Li et al, 2013; Zhou et al, 2018). It is known that by utilizing gravity (Dong et al, 2014), centrifugal force (Krebs et al, 2012), electrochemical means (Ristenpart et al, 2009), or adsorption (Ge et al, 2017), oil/water mixtures can be separated in a macro scale. Nano-arrays mimicking cacti surface are reported to be candidates for the effective collection of micron-sized oil droplets from water (Ju et al, 2012). They either suffer from poor mechanical durability or from an impotent filtering efficiency. A single reusable demulsificator that combines the merits of mechanical durability, high efficiency, and high throughput has been missing
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