Membranes provide an effective solution to treat emulsified oily wastewater, but usually have inherent drawbacks: permeability and selectivity trade-off as well as serious membrane fouling. In this study, carbon nanotube-polyvinyl alcohol (CNT-PVA) composite membranes with high water flux and good electrical conductivity were fabricated and then served as cathode during the filtration of n-hexadecane-in-water emulsion (n-emulsion) and cutting fluid emulsion (c-emulsion) to improve the oil removal efficiency and alleviate membrane fouling. Results show that oil removal rates increase from 85.2% to 97.6% for n-emulsion and from 56.7% to 83.0% for c-emulsion after the application of −1.5 V. The permeation flux after an operation of 60 min with −1.5 V are 2.3 times and 2.2 times of those without potential for n-emulsion and c-emulsion, respectively. Additionally, less oil fouling can be observed from the SEM images of the membrane surface and fouling can be mitigated according to the analysis of fouling model. Cyclic voltammetry and zeta potential analysis demonstrate that electrostatic repulsion rather than electrochemical reactions is responsible for the enhanced oil removal rate and antifouling ability in the filtration process. Furthermore, the results of long term filtration with five runs indicate that the application of potential onto the membranes maintains remarkable stability in high oil removal rate and high flux recovery rate.

膜为处理乳化的含油废水提供了一种有效的解决方案，但通常具有固有的缺点：渗透性和选择性之间的权衡以及严重的膜污染。本研究制备了水通量高，导电性好的碳纳米管-聚乙烯醇（CNT-PVA）复合膜，然后将其用作水-正十六烷乳化液（n-乳化液）的过滤和切割的阴极。流体乳液（c乳液），以提高除油效率并减轻膜污染。结果表明，油去除率从85.2％提高到97.6％，为ñ-emulsion和从56.7％至83.0％对c-乳液的-1.5V。渗透通量的60分钟-1.5 V为2.3倍和2.2倍，而不为潜在的操作后该应用程序后Ñ-乳液和c-乳液。另外，从膜表面的SEM图像中可以观察到更少的油垢，并且可以根据积垢模型的分析来减轻积垢。循环伏安法和ζ电势分析表明，静电排斥而不是电化学反应是导致过滤过程中除油率和防污能力增强的原因。此外，五次运行的长期过滤结果表明，在膜上施加电势可在高除油率和高通量回收率方面保持出色的稳定性。