Liu Qingsheng, Patel Ankit A, Liu Lingyun
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The University of Akron , Akron, Ohio 44325, United States.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2014 Jun 25;6(12):8996-9003. doi: 10.1021/am502302g. Epub 2014 Jun 10.
Oil-water separation is a major problem in industries such as oil production and wastewater treatment, where millions of gallons of oil-contaminated water are produced. Zwitterionic poly(sulfobetaine methacrylate) (pSBMA) is a superhydrophilic polymer due to its strong interaction with water via electrostatic interactions. By coating surfaces of filter media with such a superhydrophilic polymer, it is expected that one can effectively separate oil and water. In this work, pSBMA was grafted onto glass fiber surfaces using surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization (SI-ATRP). The in-air water contact angle of the pSBMA-treated glass was 8-15°, as compared to 31° for the control untreated glass, whereas the underwater-oil contact angle of the pSBMA-grafted glass was 162-169°, as compared to 142° for the control pristine glass, suggesting that the pSBMA-grafted glass slides are superhydrophilic and underwater superoleophobic. Such superhydrophilicity and underwater superoleophobicity were realized by modifying surface chemistry only, with no need to create rough surfaces. The pSBMA-grafted glass fiber filters demonstrated exceptional results at separating oil from water without even allowing miniscule amounts of visible oil to permeate through.
油水分离是石油生产和废水处理等行业中的一个主要问题，这些行业会产生数百万加仑的含油污水。两性离子聚（甲基丙烯酸磺酸甜菜碱）（pSBMA）是一种超亲水性聚合物，因为它通过静电相互作用与水有很强的相互作用。通过用这种超亲水性聚合物涂覆过滤介质的表面，有望能够有效地分离油和水。在这项工作中，使用表面引发的原子转移自由基聚合（SI-ATRP）将pSBMA接枝到玻璃纤维表面。经pSBMA处理的玻璃在空气中的水接触角为8-15°，而未处理的对照玻璃为31°，而接枝pSBMA的玻璃在水下的油接触角为162-169°，对照原始玻璃为142°，这表明接枝pSBMA的玻璃载玻片具有超亲水性和水下超疏油性。这种超亲水性和水下超疏油性仅通过改变表面化学性质即可实现，无需制造粗糙表面。接枝pSBMA的玻璃纤维过滤器在从水中分离油方面表现出优异的效果，甚至不允许微量可见油渗透过去。
