Zuo Jihao, Liu Zihan, Zhou Cailong, Zhou Yi, Wen Xiufang, Xu Shouping, Cheng Jiang, Pi Pihui
School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Guangdong Provincial Key Lab of Green Chemical Product Technology, Guangdong Engineering Technology Research Center of Advanced Insulating Coating, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China.
School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China.
J Hazard Mater. 2021 Feb 5;403:123620. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.123620. Epub 2020 Aug 9.
How to rapidly and efficiently separate surfactant-stabilized emulsions has been a great challenge for oil/water separation materials. In this work, a durable superwetting copper mesh with high efficiency and flux for gravity-driven emulsion separation was fabricated by subtly inlaying polydopamine/polyethyleneimine@aminated carbon nanotubes (PDA/PEI@CNTs-NH) clusters in the mesh pores. The porous clusters with abundant cationic groups render the mesh with superwettability, submicron permeation channels and positive charges, so as to achieve strong demulsification ability. Based on the superwettability and the strong demulsification ability, the PDA/PEI@CNTs-NH clusters-inlayed copper mesh (PPC-CM) exhibited high separation efficiency of over 99.5% for various anionic surfactant-stabilized oil-in-water emulsions. Meanwhile, the permeation flux of PPC-CM solely driven by gravity is as high as 3946.3 L m h. The strong demulsification ability and high permeation flux of the superwetting mesh are due to the synergistic action of charge-screening effect of -NH and size-sieving effect of optimized pore size. Furthermore, the resultant mesh exhibited excellent durability that it could resist serious physical abrasion and chemical corrosion. Especially the mesh after repeated separation can recover its positive charge by a simple acid treatment. These excellent performances highlight the superwetting mesh a promising potential for sustainable separation of highly stabilized oil/water emulsions.
如何快速有效地分离表面活性剂稳定的乳液一直是油水分离材料面临的巨大挑战。在这项工作中，通过在网孔中巧妙地镶嵌聚多巴胺/聚乙烯亚胺@胺化碳纳米管（PDA/PEI@CNTs-NH）簇，制备了一种用于重力驱动乳液分离的高效、高通量的耐用超润湿性铜网。具有丰富阳离子基团的多孔簇使铜网具有超润湿性、亚微米渗透通道和正电荷，从而实现强大的破乳能力。基于超润湿性和强大的破乳能力，镶嵌有PDA/PEI@CNTs-NH簇的铜网（PPC-CM）对各种阴离子表面活性剂稳定的水包油乳液表现出超过99.5%的高分离效率。同时，仅在重力作用下PPC-CM的渗透通量高达3946.3 L m h。超润湿性铜网强大的破乳能力和高渗透通量归因于-NH的电荷筛选效应和优化孔径的尺寸筛分效应的协同作用。此外，所得铜网表现出优异的耐久性，能够抵抗严重的物理磨损和化学腐蚀。特别是经过反复分离后的铜网可以通过简单的酸处理恢复其正电荷。这些优异的性能突出了超润湿性铜网在可持续分离高度稳定的油水乳液方面具有广阔的应用潜力。
