A Self-Cleaning Heterostructured Membrane for E cient Oil-in-Water Emulsion Separation with Stable Flux

Yahui Cai, Dongyun Chen, Najun Li, Qingfeng Xu, Hua Li, Jinghui He, and Jianmei Lu^*（路建美）

Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and echnology,

College of Chemistry Chemical Engineering and Materials Science ,Soochow University,199 Ren’ai Road, Suzhou 215123, P. R. China

Adv. Mater. 2020, 2001265

Lack of clean water is a major global challenge. Membrane separation technology is an ideal choice for the treatment of industrial, domestic sewage owing to its low energy consumption and cost. However, membranes are highly susceptible to contamination, particularly during wastewater treatment, which has limited their practical applications in this field. Similarly, the flux of the membrane decreases with prolonged use due to its reduced interlayer spacing. Preparation of membranes with anticontamination properties and stable flux is the key to addressing this problem. In this study, a 2D heterostructure membrane with visible-light-driven self-cleaning performance is prepared via a self-assembly process. Notably, the addition of palygorskite increases the interlayer spacing of the graphene and heterojunction structures, which increases the flux of the membrane and avoids a decrease of the interlayer spacing of the membrane under pressure. The presence of a heterojunction with visible light catalytic properties effectively avoids membrane fouling and avoids a sharp decrease of the permeation flux. Importantly, the prepared 2D membrane has excellent separation performance for oil-water emulsions with both high flux and efficiency. These features suggest great potential for the prepared 2D membrane in wastewater treatment applications.

链接：https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/adma.202001265