College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou 730070, PR China; Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New and Renewable Energy Research and Development, Guangzhou 510640, PR China.
College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou 730070, PR China.
J Colloid Interface Sci. 2018 Feb 1;511:233-242. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2017.09.111. Epub 2017 Sep 30.
Pressure-driven and lower flux of superwetting ultrafiltration membranes in various emulsions separation are long-standing issues and major barriers for their large-scale utilization. Even though currently reported membranes have achieved great success in emulsions separeation, they still suffer from low flux and complex fabrication process resulting from their smaller nanoscale pore size. Herein, utilizition of coconut shell as a novel biomaterial for developing into a layer through the simple smashing, cleaning and stacking procedures, which not only could avoid the complexity of film making process, but also could realize efficient gravity-directed separation of both immiscible oil/water mixtures and water-in-oil emulsions with high flux. Specifically, the layer acted as "water-removing" type filtrate material with excellent underwater superoleophobicity, exhibiting high efficiency for various immiscible oil/water mixtures separation and larger oil intrusion pressure. More importantly, the layer could also serve as adsorbent material with underoil superhydrophilicity, achieving gravity-directed kinds of water-in-oil emulsions separation with high separation efficiency (above 99.99%) and higher flux (above 1620L/mh), even when their pore sizes are larger than that of emulsified droplets. We deeply believe that this study would open up a new strategy for both immiscible oil/water mixtures and water-in-oil emulsions separation.
超润湿超滤膜在各种乳液分离中的压力驱动和通量较低是长期存在的问题，也是其大规模应用的主要障碍。尽管目前报道的膜在乳液分离方面取得了巨大的成功，但由于其纳米级孔径较小，仍然存在通量低和制造工艺复杂的问题。在这里，我们利用椰子壳作为一种新型生物材料，通过简单的粉碎、清洗和堆叠过程将其开发成一层膜，不仅可以避免膜制造工艺的复杂性，还可以实现高效的重力导向分离，对不混溶的油水混合物和水包油乳液都具有高通量。具体来说，该层膜表现出水下超疏油性的“除水”型过滤材料特性，对各种不混溶的油水混合物分离具有高效率和更高的油渗透压力。更重要的是，该层膜还可以作为具有水下超亲油性的吸附材料，实现重力导向的各种水包油乳液分离，具有高分离效率（高于 99.99%）和更高的通量（高于 1620L/mh），即使它们的孔径大于乳化液滴。我们深信，这项研究将为不混溶的油水混合物和水包油乳液的分离开辟一条新的策略。
