Fabrication of acrylamide decorated superhydrophilic and underwater superoleophobic poly(vinylidene fluoride) membranes for oil/water emulsion separation

Here we have successfully fabricated the superhydrophilic and underwater superoleophobic PVDF/Al₂O₃/PAM membranes byconstructed “needle-shaped” PAM on the PVDF/Al₂O₃ hybrid membranes surface through ATRP technology. The modified membranes were characterized by the Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS) that the AIP has been hydrolyzed to Al₂O₃ and AM has successfully polymerized on the membrane surface. When the PVDF/Al₂O₃/PAM membranes were applied in oil/water emulsion separation, the separation efficiencies were more than 99.1% and the maximum flux of the emulsion was 5874L/ m/²/h/bar. In the anti-fouling performance experiment, the flux recovery ration (FRR) of the PVDF/Al₂O₃/PAM membranes could still reach 83.46% after eight cycles. Therefore, the PVDF/Al₂O₃/PAM membranes have high separation efficiency and high flux performance for separating oil-water emulsions, and steadily anti-oil performance is suitable for practical applications.