Rapid and efficient fabrication of scalable PDMAPAAgel@TA-APTES@PVDF hydrogel composite membrane for highly efficient antifouling crude oil-water separation

Rapid, room-temperature, and scalable fabrication of the membrane is achieved. • The membrane exhibits excellent crude-oil antifouling ability and underwater superoleophobicity. • The membrane shows high permeation flux and excellent separation efficiency for various oil-in-water emulsions, including crude oil emulsion. • The emulsion permeation flux of the membrane almost maintains zero attenuation during long-term operation for n-hexane emulsion (3 h) and even crude oil emulsion (1 h). • The membrane remains stable after prolonged immersion in acidic, alkaline, and saline solutions. Despite the critical importance of efficient oily wastewater separation, practical implementation remains severely constrained by severe fouling, low membrane flux, and challenges in scalable production. Consequently, the rapid and scalable fabrication of superhydrophilic membranes with superior antifouling performance has become an urgent priority for treating large quantities of oily wastewater. Herein, we employed a polyphenol-metal dual autocatalytic system to rapidly and efficiently fabricate a high-throughput, anti-fouling, and scalable PDMAPAA gel @TA-APTES@PVDF hydrogel composite membrane under mild conditions. Endowed with the TA-APTES micro-nano structure and the PDMAPAA hydrogel layer, the membrane achieves high water flux (over 40000 L∙m −2 ∙h −1 ∙bar −1 ), excellent emulsion flux (over 5500 L∙m −2 ∙h −1 ∙bar −1 ) and exceptional oil-water separation efficiency (over 99.50%). The emulsion flux shows almost maintains zero attenuation during long-term operation for the n-hexane emulsion (3 h) and even the crude oil emulsion (1 h). The membrane also has excellent underwater anti-adhesion properties for crude oil. Crude oil adhered to the membrane surface can be readily removed by simple water immersion. What’s more, the membrane exhibits exceptional chemical stability, conferring robust resistance to acidic, alkaline, and saline environments. Download: Download high-res image (294KB) Download: Download full-size image