Piezoelectric oxide ceramic nanofibrous membranes with patchy moss nanoarchitectured skin for sustaining nano/submicrometer-emulsion separation

Existing separation technologies struggle to separate nanosized oil droplets from highly stabilized emulsions to address the water supply shortage, exhibiting an inherent shortcoming of poor permeability and severe oil fouling. Herein, we presented a microscale channel of ceramic membranes with a piezoelectric semiconductor microsphere skin constructed of hydrophobic nanodomains and rich oxygen vacancies. The sprinkled hydrophobic nanodomains acted as “oil capturing tentacles”, facilitating the efficient coalescence of oil droplets and preventing the formation of oil cake layer. The obtained membranes with microchannels could efficiently separate 16 types of oil-in-water nano/submicrometer-emulsions, achieving an ultrahigh permeation flux of up to 6550 L·m −2 ·h −1 with the separation efficiency exceeding 99.85%. Additionally, oily foulants on the membrane undergo degradation by piezotronic effect-enhanced photocatalysts, where piezoelectric-induced band bending drives highly efficient separation of photogenerated carriers, markedly boosting oil degradation with a nearly 99.5% flux recovery of the membrane. This research pioneers new pathways to advance membrane separation and environmental remediation for real-world applications.