Facile fabrication of multifunctional superoleophobic and antifouling metal mesh by dip-coating polyanion for efficient oil/water mixtures as well as emulsions separation

ABSTRACT Oil/water separation has recently attracted a great deal of attention for research due to the frequent occurrence of an oil spill as well as the increase of industrial and household oily wastewater. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to demonstrate underwater superoleophobic crosslinked phosphorylated poly(vinyl alcohol) hydrogel coated stainless steel mesh (CL-PPVA@SSM), which was fabricated using a simple dip-coating method and aldol reaction on the mesh substrate. The as-prepared CL-PPVA@SSM is capable of separating oil from a variety of different oil/water mixtures with high separation efficiency up to 99.2%, excellent recyclability and fast water permeate flux of 467.7 L m –2 h –1 , which makes it suitable for the separation of oil-water mixtures from oil-water emulsions. Also, in the oil-water separation process, the CL-PPVA@SSM is capable to remove organic dye from the water. The CL-PPVA@SSM exhibits stability under various harsh conditions such as mechanical abrasion. Importantly, the CL-PPVA@SSM shows a massive potential to separate kitchen waste oil/water mixtures due to the underwater superoleophobic property as required for the recycling of kitchen waste oil. Therefore, this method has been met with a promising application prospect of practical application.