Superhydrophobic graphene-coated sponge with microcavities for high efficiency oil-in-water emulsion separation

  • Longxiang Han
  • , Hengchang Bi
  • , Xiao Xie
  • , Shi Su
  • , Peng Mao
  • , Litao Sun

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

46 Scopus citations

Abstract

Materials for emulsion separation with low pressure, high flux and high stability are of great interest in the treatment of oily wastewater. Herein, we report a facile strategy for the fabrication of PDMS and graphene coated melamine sponge (PG-MS), which can efficiently separate oil-in-water emulsions. In PG-MS, melamine sponge (MS) provides a three-dimensional porous structure, graphene constructs hydrophobic microcavities, and PDMS enhances the hydrophobic property of the material, forming a superhydrophobic material. The PG-MS shows high flux (experimentally 10 000 L m-2 h-1, and the effective flux increases with the thickness of the filter layer), high separation efficiency (oil content of the filtered water ∼4.7 mg L-1 can be discharged directly, with oil separation efficiency >99%), low pressure (applied to overcome water's gravity), and high stability (no obvious change in 20 cycles). Our study indicates that PG-MS has a wide range of applications in oil-in-water emulsion separation in industry and environmental sciences.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)17812-17820
Number of pages9
JournalNanoscale
Volume12
Issue number34
DOIs
StatePublished - 14 Sep 2020

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