Strong Flexible Ceramic Nanofiber Membranes for Ultrafast Separation of Oil Pollutants

Super strong, highly flexible ceramic nanofiber membranes (CNFMs) with amorphous SiO2 and small-sized zirconia grains were prepared, and then hydrophobic CNFMs (SCNFMs) were obtained by impregnating vinyl silicone resins. SCNFMs had high strength (6.0–11.4 MPa), ultrahigh flexibility, and water and chemical resistance. These characteristics enabled them to be used in a variety of water and oil environments and to rapidly separate oil slicks, dispersed oils, and emulsified oils on demand. SCNFMs not only had excellent selective adsorption and high adsorption capacity (28–57 g g–1) but also had high resilience, high temperature resistance, and flame retardancy, which enabled them to remove contaminants by squeezing and combustion, with a reuse efficiency of 100%. Only by gravity, the SCNFMs could effectively separate oil/water mixtures and surfactant-stabilized water-in-oil emulsions with a flux of up to 6.7 × 105 and 2.5 × 105 L m–2 h–1, respectively. The ultrafast separation speed was on the order of magnitude of that obtained for many separation materials reported so far. The recyclable and environmentally friendly separation material, with excellent mechanical properties, high adsorption capacity, and separation efficiency, had potential applications in the fields of oil/water separation.