Superoleophobic polymers with metal ion affinity toward materials with both oleophobic and hydrophilic properties

Superwetting materials for hydrophilic-oleophobic membrane in oily wastewater treatment

The vast amount of oily wastewater released to the environment through industrialization has worsened the water quality in recent years, posing adverse impacts on general human health. Oil emulsified in water is one of the most difficult mixtures to be treated, making it imperative for new technology to be explored to address this issue. The use of conventional water treatment such as flotation, coagulation, precipitation, adsorption, and chemical treatment have low separation efficiencies and high energy costs, and are not applicable to the separation of oil/water emulsions. Therefore, there is a demand for more efficient methods and materials for the separations of immiscible oil/water mixtures and emulsions. Superwetting materials that can repel oil, while letting water pass through have been widely explored to fit into this concern. These materials usually make use of simultaneous hydrophilic/oleophobic mechanisms to allow a solid surface to separate oily emulsion with little to no use of energy. Also, by integrating specific wettability concepts with appropriate pore scale, solid surfaces may achieve separation of multifarious oil/water mixtures namely immiscible oil/water blends and consolidated emulsions. In this review, materials used to impart superwetting in solid surfaces by focusing on superhydrophilic/superoleophobic wetting properties of the materials categorized into fluorinated and non-fluorinated surface modification are summarized. In each material, its background, mechanism, fabricating processes, and their effects on solid surface's wetting capability are elaborated in detail. The materials reviewed in this paper are mainly organic and green, suggesting the alternative material to replace the fluorine group that is widely used to achieve oleophobicity in oily wastewater treatment.

Facile preparation of cotton fabric with superhydrophilicity–oleophobicity in air and superoleophobicity under water by using branched polyethyleneimine/perfluorooctanoic acid composites

Preparation of cotton fabric with superhydrophilicity-oleophobicity in the air and superoleophobicity under water by using branched polyethyleneimine/perfluorooctanoic acid composites and its application in gravity-controlled oil-water separation.

Conditions for spontaneous oil–water separation with oil–water separators

A theory is proposed for the selection of the nature of the separator for spontaneous oil–water separation from oil-in-water and water-in-oil systems.

Elaboration of voltage and ion exchange stimuli-responsive conducting polymers with selective switchable liquid-repellency

In this work, we report the possibility to selectively switch by voltage and anion exchange the water-repellent properties, in comparison with the oil-repellent properties, of copolymers containing both fluorinated chain (EDOT-F8) and pyridinium (EDOT-Py(+)) moieties. Here, the fluorinated chains are necessary to reach superhydrophobic properties while the pyridinium moieties allow the switching in the wettability by counterion exchange. Because, conducting polymers can exist in their oxidized and reduced state, here, we report also the switching of their wettability by voltage. The best properties (superhydrophobic properties with low hysteresis and sliding and good oleophobic properties) are obtained for a % of EDOT-Py(+) of 25 %. Surprisingly, by reducing the polymer by changing the voltage, a selective decrease in the contact angle of water is observed, whereas that of oils (diiodomethane and hexadecane) remain unchanged, making it possible to have higher contact angles with diiodomethane than with water. Here, the switching in the wettability is due to the change of the water droplet from the Cassie-Baxter state to the Wenzel state by changing the voltage. Because of the presence of highly polar pyridinium groups and their perchlorate counterions, the wettability of oil droplets (diiodomethane and hexadecane) is not significantly affected. This effect is confirmed by changing the counterions with highly hydrophobic ones (C8F17SO3(-), Tf2N(-), or BF4(-)). Such materials are excellent candidates for oil/water separation membranes.