Abstract
For decades, oil and water separation has remained a challenge. Not only oil spills but also industrial oily wastewaters are threatening our environment. Over the years, oil–water separation methods have been developed, however, there are still considerable hurdles to overcome to provide a low cost and efficient process able to treat a large amount of liquid. In this work, we suggest a continuous, simultaneous and effective oil–water separation method based on the antagonistic functionalization of meshes using atmospheric pressure cold plasmas. Using this robust plasma method, superhydrophobic/underwater-superoleophilic or superhydrophilic/underwater-superoleophobic functionalized meshes are obtained. Antagonistically functionalized meshes can simultaneously separate oil and water and show continuous separation flow rates of water (900 L m−2 h−1) and oil (400 L m−2 h−1) with high purities (> 99.9% v/v). This fast, low-cost and continuous plasma-based process can be readily and widely adopted for the selective functionalization of membranes at large scale for oil-spill cleanup and water purification.
Highlights
Oil and water separation has remained a challenge
These methods are operating in open-air, generate few wastes, are implementable in continuous processes like roll-to-roll systems, are able to rapidly modify large surfaces in a single step, run at low cost as they do not require the use of expensive vacuum equipment and they have low processing temperature, allowing the modification of heat sensitive m aterials[22]
Even though both meshes showed superhydrophobic behavior at first when measurements are performed on dried meshes, the reference mesh lost its hydrophobicity by water dipping, and showed almost 0° WCA by cyclic dipping in water (Supplementary Fig. S1)
Summary
Oil and water separation has remained a challenge. oil spills and industrial oily wastewaters are threatening our environment. Atmospheric-pressure plasma-based methods are of major interest for industrial up-scaling These methods are operating in open-air, generate few wastes, are implementable in continuous processes like roll-to-roll systems, are able to rapidly modify large surfaces in a single step, run at low cost as they do not require the use of expensive vacuum equipment and they have low processing temperature, allowing the modification of heat sensitive m aterials[22]. Via simple variation of the plasma gas composition, the surface property of meshes and membranes can be controlled These methods were applied to develop oil–water separation devices relying on single functionalized membranes or meshes: Chen et al reported a 97.5% oil/water separation efficiency using nylon membranes modified by a mmsize atmospheric pressure helium plasma jet to develop superhydrophilic/underwater-superoleophobic surface for water p ermeation[20]. You et al successfully demonstrated oil collection using a stainless steel mesh functionalized via atmospheric pressure plasma polymerization to develop oleophilic/superhydrophobic s urface[13]
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