Highly durable and sustainable heterogeneous fabric using in-and-out fluorinated urethane coating for elimination of bacteria and oil–water separation

Abstract To address the poor oil–water separation efficiency and bactericidal properties of existing oil–water separation membranes for the treatment of industrial oily wastewater discharge, this study designed an in-and-out coating material for modifying the inner site and outer surface of porous activated carbon fabric (ACF) using urethane reactions. To this end, fluorinated polyurethane (F-PU) coating materials were synthesized using perfluoroalkyl alcohol, ethylene glycol (EG), and isophorone diisocyanate (IPDI). Subsequently, the inner and outer surface of the ACF were coated with F-PU via the urethane reaction of the hydroxyl groups (–OH) of the surface of ACF and the isocyanates of F-PU. The successfully fabricated in-and-out F-PU-coated heterogeneous fabric exhibited excellent hydrophobic properties, anti-scratch performance, oil–water separation performance, and bacterial penetration blocking efficiency (>99% for gram negative and gram positive bacteria). Furthermore, the in-and-out-coated ACF exhibited high durability, and retained its bacterial penetration blocking performance after scratch tests.