Fabrication of acrylamide decorated superhydrophilic and underwater superoleophobic poly(vinylidene fluoride) membranes for oil/water emulsion separation

Here we have successfully fabricated the superhydrophilic and underwater superoleophobic PVDF/ Al2O3/PAM membranes by constructed needle-shaped PAM on the PVDF/Al2O3 hybrid membranes surface through ATRP technology. The modified membranes were characterized by the Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS) that the AlP has been hydrolyzed to Al2O3 and AM has successfully polymerized on the membrane surface. When the PVDF/Al2O3/PAM membranes were applied in oil/water emulsion separation, the separation efficiencies were more than 99.1% and the maximum flux of the emulsion was 5874L/ m/(2)/h/bar. In the anti-fouling performance experiment, the flux recovery ration (FRR) of the PVDF/Al2O3 /PAM membranes could still reach 83.46% after eight cycles. Therefore, the PVDF/Al2O3/PAM membranes have high separation efficiency and high flux performance for separating oil-water emulsions, and steadily anti-oil performance is suitable for practical applications. (C) 2018 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers.