Abstract
Developing a porous separation membrane that can efficiently separate oil–water emulsions still represents a challenge. In this study, nanofiber membranes with polydopamine clusters polymerized and embedded on the surface were successfully constructed using a solution blow-spinning process. The hierarchical surface structure enhanced the selective wettability, superhydrophilicity in air (≈0°), and underwater oleophobicity (≈160.2°) of the membrane. This membrane can effectively separate oil–water emulsions, achieving an excellent permeation flux (1552 Lm−2 h−1) and high separation efficiency (~99.86%) while operating only under the force of gravity. When the external driving pressure was increased to 20 kPa, the separation efficiency hardly changed (99.81%). However, the permeation flux significantly increased to 5894 Lm−2 h−1. These results show that the as-prepared polydopamine nanocluster-embedded nanofiber membrane has an excellent potential for oily wastewater treatment applications.
Highlights
Industrial development results in huge quantities of oily wastewater, causing water pollution and serious environmental problems and hindering sustainable development [1,2,3]
An efficient design of separation membranes should ensure that the membrane surface has a hierarchical structure and a submicron pore structure to achieve superhydrophilicity and high water permeation flux, respectively [31,32]
The hierarchical structure was constructed on the surface using embedded PDA nanoclusters to achieve super hydrophilicity
Summary
Industrial development results in huge quantities of oily wastewater, causing water pollution and serious environmental problems and hindering sustainable development [1,2,3]. Wastewater typically originates from oil leakage, sewage discharges from industrial activities, and petroleum oil processes such as extraction, transportation, and processing [4,5,6]. Wastewater can be classified into slick, dispersed, emulsified, and dissolved oils [7,8]. Slick and dispersed oils can be effectively separated by static sedimentation and other methods with minimal processing difficulty due to their large oil droplet size. Emulsified and dissolved oils form a stable dispersion system in water due to their extremely small particle size [9]. The effective separation of emulsified oil has become an important topic in oily wastewater treatment research
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