Technology Innovation Centre for Exploitation of Marine Biological Resources, Third Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources, Xiamen, 361005, China; Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, China.
Technology Innovation Centre for Exploitation of Marine Biological Resources, Third Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources, Xiamen, 361005, China.
Chemosphere. 2024 Sep;363:142960. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2024.142960. Epub 2024 Jul 28.
Despite the emergence of hydrogels as ideal candidates for preparing the superhydrophilic materials for emulsion separation, their structural stability and swelling still hinder their long-term use, mainly due to structure defects after swelling. Herein, differing from the common modification, the eco-friendly poly 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (pHEMA) hydrogel foam was designed and synthesized via a one-step strategy by using the high internal phase emulsion (HIPE) template method, which endowed it with a highly interpenetrated porous structure. Unlike the normal swellable hydrogels such as poly(N-isoproplyacrylamide) (PNIPAM) hydrogel, or modified hydrogel coatings, the pHEMA hydrogel foam displayed stable structure and underwater superoleophobicity after 20 d of immersion in water. The pHEMA hydrogel foam could separate different kinds of highly surfactant-stabilized oil-in-water (O/W) emulsions with a high separation efficiency of 99.3% for liquid paraffin emulsion obtained solely under gravity-driven. Additionally, it exhibited excellent antifouling performance and long-term acid/alkali tolerance over 100 h without decrease in emulsion separation efficiency (98.0%, oil/water ratio of 99:1) and permeation flux (over 2000 L·m·h) attributed to its stable bulky structure. Moreover, the pHEMA hydrogel foam demonstrated high cell viability of 96.87% and 95.96% after culturing the 3T3 clone A31 cells in the pHEMA hydrogel foam for 24 h and 48 h, respectively, indicating good biocompatibility. Hence, our work provides a new design to develop an eco-friendly bulk hydrogel foam that achieves stable structure and performance for emulsion separation.
尽管水凝胶作为制备乳液分离用超亲水材料的理想候选材料已经出现，但它们的结构稳定性和溶胀性仍然阻碍了它们的长期使用，主要是由于溶胀后的结构缺陷。在此，与常见的改性不同，通过使用高内相乳液（HIPE）模板法的一步策略设计并合成了环保型聚 2-羟乙基甲基丙烯酸酯（pHEMA）水凝胶泡沫，赋予其高度互穿多孔结构。与普通的可溶胀水凝胶（如聚（N-异丙基丙烯酰胺）（PNIPAM）水凝胶）或改性水凝胶涂层不同，pHEMA 水凝胶泡沫在浸入水中 20 天后仍保持稳定的结构和水下超疏油性。pHEMA 水凝胶泡沫可以分离不同种类的高表面活性剂稳定的油包水（O/W）乳液，仅在重力驱动下就可以获得 99.3%的液体石蜡乳液的高分离效率。此外，它表现出出色的抗污性能和长达 100 小时的耐酸碱性能，在不降低乳液分离效率（98.0%，油水比为 99:1）和渗透通量（超过 2000 L·m·h）的情况下，这归因于其稳定的大体积结构。此外，pHEMA 水凝胶泡沫在 3T3 克隆 A31 细胞分别培养 24 小时和 48 小时后，细胞活力分别达到 96.87%和 95.96%，表明其具有良好的生物相容性。因此，我们的工作为开发用于乳液分离的稳定结构和性能的环保块状水凝胶泡沫提供了一种新的设计思路。
