Fabrication of stable super‐hydrophilic/underwater super‐oleophobic poly(arylene ether nitrile) nanofibrous composite membranes via the one‐step co‐deposition of dopamine and 3‐aminopropyltriethoxysilane for efficient oil‐in‐water emulsion separation

• Published in: Journal of chemical technology and biotechnology (1986) Vol. 95; no. 12; pp. 3149 - 3160
• Main Authors: Mou, Chuanlin, Hu, Jiaxin, Zhan, Yingqing, He, Shuangjiang, Chiao, Yu‐Hsuan, Zhao, Shumei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 01.12.2020; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: Adhesive strength; Aminopropyltriethoxysilane; Antifouling substances; Composite materials; Corrosion prevention; Deposition; Dopamine; Emulsions; Fabrication; Hydrophilicity; membrane; Membranes; Oil spills; oil/water separation; poly(arylene ether nitrile); Polymers; Separation; stability; Submerging; super‐wetting property; Tensile strength; Thermal stability; Underwater; Wastewater; Wetting
• ISSN: 0268-2575; 1097-4660
• DOI: 10.1002/jctb.6492

BACKGROUND The large‐scale oily wastewater from chemical industries and oil spills causes severe damage to ecosystems and affects human health. To date, plenty of superwetting membranes have been applied for efficient oil/water separation, but they still face many challenges when separating emulsified oily wastewater in harsh chemical conditions. RESULTS Herein, novel thermally and chemically stable super‐hydrophilic/underwater super‐oleophobic polymer nanofibrous composite membranes were fabricated by a facile and effective strategy. For this purpose, poly(arylene ether nitrile) (PEN) nanofibrous matting prepared from electrospinning was chosen as a supporting layer, which possessed excellent performance including anticorrosion, high thermal stability and tensile strength. Based on this, polydopamine (PDA) and 3‐aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) were easily and uniformly co‐deposited onto the porous PEN supporting layer via a one‐step immersion process. The resulting PEN composite membranes possessed stable super‐hydrophilic/underwater super‐oleophobic properties because of strong adhesion, abundant hydrophilic groups and the hierarchical micro‐/nanostructure. Consequently, these membranes could separate various surfactant‐stabilized emulsions under low driving pressure (0.04 MPa), with high permeation flux (6121 L m−2 h−1) and oil rejection ratio (>99.63%). Furthermore, the PEN nanofibrous membranes exhibited stable super‐wetting and long‐term separation performance under harsh operating conditions. CONCLUSION The super‐hydrophilic/underwater super‐oleophobic PEN membranes fabricated via a facile co‐deposition strategy realized high separation efficiency, and excellent stability and antifouling property for emulsified oily wastewater under harsh operating environments, which indicated that they may have promising applications for the treatment of complicated oily wastewaters. © 2020 Society of Chemical Industry