Engineering a superwetting membrane with spider-web structured carboxymethyl cellulose gel layer for efficient oil-water separation based on biomimetic concept

Superhydrophilic and underwater superoleophobic membranes have recently attracted significant interest as materials for effective oil-water emulsion separation. In this work, a superwetting membrane with a spider web structured gel layer was designed for efficient oil-water separation. Biomaterial, carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC), was used as the raw material, a spider web structured gel layer was constructed on the PVDF membrane surface by heat-treatment and chemical cross-linking. The hydrophilic gel layer imparted excellent superhydrophilic and underwater superoleophobic properties to the membrane, while the special spider web structure improved the membrane mechanical stability. The fabricated membrane exhibited superhydrophilicity and underwater superoleophobicity. Among different CMC concentration-modified membranes, the M-0.5 membrane containing 0.5 wt% CMC exhibited a flux of 612 L·m-2 h-1 during dichloromethane oil-water emulsion separation, which was 4.2-fold higher than that of the pristine PVDF membrane, while the membrane showed efficient oil-water separation capacity. Additionally, the water flux recovery reached as high as 93.3 %, and oil rejection attained 99.1 %. Meanwhile, the spiderweb-structured gel layer on the membrane surface displayed good mechanical stability. In summary, this novel membrane-modification method, inspired by the spider web structure, was simple, cost effective and environmentally friendly, thereby making it promising for future preparation of highly efficient oil-water emulsion separation membranes.