Synthesis of a biomimetic zwitterionic pentapolymer to fabricate high-performance PVDF membranes for efficient separation of oil-in-water nano-emulsions

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 12; no. 1; pp. 5028 - 15
• Main Authors: Baig, Nadeem, Arshad, Zeeshan, Ali, Shaikh A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 23-03-2022; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/301; 639/638; 704/172; Aquatic organisms; Biomimetics; Carbon dioxide; Contact angle; Emulsions; Environmental impact; Fluorocarbon Polymers; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Hydrophobicity; Membranes; Membranes, Artificial; multidisciplinary; Polyvinyls - chemistry; Pore size; Salts; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Sulfur dioxide; Wastewater; Water - chemistry; Zwitterions
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-09046-7

Oily wastewater from industries has an adverse impact on the environment, human and aquatic life. Poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) membrane modified with a zwitterionic/hydrophobic pentapolymer (PP) with controlled pore size has been utilized to separate oil from water from their nano-emulsions. The PP has been synthesized in 91% yield via pentapolymerization of four different diallylamine salts [(CH
2
=CHCH
2
)
2
NH
+
(CH
2
)
x
A
−
], bearing CO
2
−
, PO
3
H
−
, SO
3
−
, (CH
2
)
12
NH
2
pendants, and SO
2
in a respective mol ratio of 25:36:25:14:100. Incorporating PP into PVDF has shown a substantially reduced membrane hydrophobicity; the contact angle decreased from 92.5° to 47.4°. The PP-PVDF membranes have demonstrated an excellent capability to deal with the high concentrations of nano-emulsions with a separation efficiency of greater than 97.5%. The flux recovery ratio (FRR) of PP-
5
incorporated PVDF membrane was about 82%, which was substantially higher than the pristine PVDF.