Study on oil-water separation of selective-wettability meshes with different Micro/Nano structures

  • Jia Yuan
  • , Chenyi Cui
  • , Baojin Qi
  • , Jinjia Wei
  • , Mumtaz A. Qaisrani

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

In order to study the oil-water separation ability of meshes with selective-wettability, three types of meshes with micro-flower structure, nano-needles structure and the composite structure of micro flowers and nano-needles were successfully fabricated by in situ displacement and oxidative modification methods. The effects of microstructure, surface wettability and the liquid components on the separation performance, permeation pressure and liquid flux of meshes were then experimental studied. The experimental results showed that the efficiencies of the three meshes for separating various oil-water mixtures reached more than 99.8%, but the separation efficiency of the Cu(OH)2-CS (Cu(OH)2 on the Copper Substrate) mesh and Cu(OH)2-SSS (Cu(OH)2 on Stainless Steel Substrate) mesh were obviously higher than the Cu-SSS (Cu on Stainless Steel Substrate) mesh after 10 times separation because of the better mechanical strength of the rough structures. By comparison, it was found that the separation efficiency of the Cu(OH)2-CS mesh was slightly higher than that of the Cu(OH)2-SSS mesh. But in turn, the Cu(OH)2-SSS mesh presented a higher permeation pressure and higher liquid than other two meshes owing to the combined effects of micro-nano structure and surface wettability. Moreover, the results of separation for multi-component oil-water mixture indicated that the TOC values of Cu-SSS and Cu(OH)2-CS meshes were 21.4% and 31.2% higher than the mean values of the two oils, but TOC value of Cu(OH)2-SSS mesh is about 4.3% lower than the mean value. However, all the fabricated meshes still maintained very high separation efficiencies. In short, all these good performances demonstrate that the prepared meshes, especially Cu(OH)2-SSS mesh with micro-nano structure, have a very broad application prospects.

Original languageEnglish
Article number124026
JournalColloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects
Volume584
DOIs
StatePublished - 2 Jan 2020

Keywords

  • Micro/nano structures
  • Oil-water separation
  • Selective wettability
  • Superhydrophilicity
  • Underwater-superoleophobicity

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