Synergistic Construction of Superhydrophilic PVDF Membranes by Dual Modification Strategies for Efficient Emulsion Separation

Abstract Solving the problem of oil and water pollution is an important topic in environmental protection. The separation of oil‐water emulsion with high efficiency and low consumption has been the direction of social efforts. Membrane separation technology combined with surface wettability and pore size screening is considered to be one of the most promising ways to separate oil‐water emulsions. In this paper, the polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) membrane is prepared by combining the two methods of blending and coating modification as a double barrier. The prepared PVDF membrane can completely wet water, achieve superhydrophilic in air, and superoleophobic underwater. The separation efficiency and flux are 99.57% and 678 L h−1 m−2 bar−1, respectively, for toluene emulsions containing surfactants with an average particle size of 1.7 µm. At the same time, it can also effectively separate different kinds of light/heavy oils. After three cycles of testing still maintain high efficiency of separation. The results show that the prepared PVDF membrane can effectively separate the emulsion containing surfactant with smaller particle size distribution of oil droplets. This method provides a new strategy for the separation of oil‐water emulsions and has broad application prospects.