Slippery hydrogel surface on PTFE hollow fiber membranes for sustainable emulsion separation

Abstract

Establishing an efficient and sustainable membrane module is of great significance for practical oil/water emulsion separation. Superwetting membranes have been extensively studied but cannot meet long lasting separation owing to inevitable membrane fouling. Herein, we constructed a hydrogel-mediated slippery surface on polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) hollow fibers and then designed a flexible and swing hollow fiber membrane module inspired by fish gill respiration, which achieved sustainable emulsion separation. A vinyl silane-crosslinked polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) hydrogel was interpenetrated with nano-fibrils of the PTFE hollow fibers, thus facilitating fast water permeance while resisting oil intrusion. Liquid-like polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) brushes were then grafted to promote oil aggregation-release from the membrane surface. Owing to the heterogeneous surface and gill-like structure, the designed PTFE hollow fiber membrane module could separate emulsion in a long-term filtration process, maintaining a high water permeability of 500 L m−2 h−1 bar−1 with a separation efficiency of over 99.9% for 5000 min. This novel technique shows its great potential to realize practical emulsion separation by solving the persistent problem of membrane fouling and permeance decay.

Graphical abstract: Slippery hydrogel surface on PTFE hollow fiber membranes for sustainable emulsion separation

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Communication
Submitted
20 Jul 2024
Accepted
18 Sep 2024
First published
19 Sep 2024

Mater. Horiz., 2024, Advance Article

Slippery hydrogel surface on PTFE hollow fiber membranes for sustainable emulsion separation

Y. Ding, Y. Zhu, J. Wang, J. Wang and F. Liu, Mater. Horiz., 2024, Advance Article , DOI: 10.1039/D4MH00946K

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