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Fabrication of a superhydrophilic/underwater superoleophobic stainless steel mesh for oil/water separation with ultrahigh flux

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Abstract

Because of the increasing amount of oily wastewater produced each day, it is important to develop superhydrophilic/underwater superoleophobic oil/water separation membranes with ultrahigh flux and high separation efficiency. In this paper, a superhydrophilic/underwater superoleophobic N-isopropylacrylamide-coated stainless steel mesh was prepared through a simple and convenient graft polymerization approach. The obtained mesh was able to separate oil/water mixtures only by gravity. In addition, the mesh showed high-efficiency separation ability (99.2%) and ultrahigh flux (235239 L·m−2·h−1). Importantly, due to the complex cross-linked bilayer structure, the prepared mesh exhibited good recycling performance and chemical stability in highly saline, alkaline and acidic environments.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51473070).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, 212013, China

    Jiawei Wang, Jie Hu, Junjie Cheng, Zefei Huang & Baoqian Ye

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  1. Jiawei Wang
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Correspondence to Jie Hu.

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Wang, J., Hu, J., Cheng, J. et al. Fabrication of a superhydrophilic/underwater superoleophobic stainless steel mesh for oil/water separation with ultrahigh flux. Front. Chem. Sci. Eng. 17, 46–55 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11705-022-2170-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11705-022-2170-2

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