TY - JOUR
T1 - Thermally sensitized membranes for crude oil-water remediation under visible light
AU - Gondal, Mohammed A.
AU - Kwon, Gibum
AU - Qahtan, Talal F.
AU - Dastageer, Mohamed A.
AU - Ezazi, Mohammadamin
AU - Al-Kuban, Mohammed Z.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2020/10/28
Y1 - 2020/10/28
N2 - Effective remediation of produced water requires separating crude oil-water mixture and removing the dissolved organic pollutants. Membranes with selective wettability for water over oil enable the gravity-driven separation of an oil-water mixture by allowing water to permeate through while repelling oil. However, these membranes are often limited by their inability to remove the dissolved organic pollutants. In this work, a membrane with in-air superhydrophilic and underwater superoleophobic wettability is fabricated by thermal annealing of a stainless steel mesh. The resulting membrane possesses a hierarchical surface texture covered with a photocatalytic oxide layer composed of iron oxide and chromium oxide. The membrane exhibits chemical and mechanical robustness, which makes it suitable for remediation of crude oil and water mixture. Further, after being fouled by crude oil, the membrane can recover its inherent water-rich permeate flux upon visible light irradiation. Finally, the membrane demonstrates that it can separate surfactant-stabilized crude oil-in-water emulsion under gravity and decontaminate water-rich permeate by photocatalytic degradation of dissolved organic pollutants upon continuous irradiation of visible light.
AB - Effective remediation of produced water requires separating crude oil-water mixture and removing the dissolved organic pollutants. Membranes with selective wettability for water over oil enable the gravity-driven separation of an oil-water mixture by allowing water to permeate through while repelling oil. However, these membranes are often limited by their inability to remove the dissolved organic pollutants. In this work, a membrane with in-air superhydrophilic and underwater superoleophobic wettability is fabricated by thermal annealing of a stainless steel mesh. The resulting membrane possesses a hierarchical surface texture covered with a photocatalytic oxide layer composed of iron oxide and chromium oxide. The membrane exhibits chemical and mechanical robustness, which makes it suitable for remediation of crude oil and water mixture. Further, after being fouled by crude oil, the membrane can recover its inherent water-rich permeate flux upon visible light irradiation. Finally, the membrane demonstrates that it can separate surfactant-stabilized crude oil-in-water emulsion under gravity and decontaminate water-rich permeate by photocatalytic degradation of dissolved organic pollutants upon continuous irradiation of visible light.
KW - Oil-water separation
KW - Photocatalysis
KW - Produced water
KW - Stainless steel mesh
KW - Thermal annealing
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85094932293&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1021/acsami.0c13888
DO - 10.1021/acsami.0c13888
M3 - Article
SN - 1944-8244
VL - 12
SP - 48572
EP - 48579
JO - ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces
JF - ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces
IS - 43
ER -