Dansawad, Panchan and Li, Yanxiang and Cao, Lixia and Gao, Haigang and Yang, Chaoyong and Huang, Enming and You, Siming and Li, Wangliang (2024) An unmodified recycled Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) nanofibrous membrane for water-in-oil and oil-in-water emulsions separation. Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects, 696: 134335. ISSN 0927-7757

Abstract

A nanofibrous membrane made of unmodified recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) was fabricated by electrospinning using plastic water bottle as raw materials. Using rPET polymer to fabricate membranes may help limit the discharge of plastic bottle waste into the environment and can treat oily wastewater simultaneously, especially emulsions. The variation in the concentration of rPET polymer and the properties of electrospun nanofibers, such as surface morphology and fiber diameter, had a significant impact on both the efficiency of oil droplet capturing and the surface wettability of the membrane. Water-in-oil emulsions and oil-in-water emulsions were separated using the nanofibrous membranes of different concentrations of rPET polymer, and the separation efficiencies at different concentrations of oil, and oil types were measured. The rPET nanofibrous membrane exhibited a water contact angle of 140.1° and was superoleophilic in air and underwater. The membranes exhibited excellent separation performances: >98% separation efficiency and a flux of more than 6500 L m-2 h-1 for water in hexadecane and octane emulsions; >95 % efficiency and a flux of 1509.70 L m-2 h-1 after three separation cycles of water-in-oil emulsions. For oil-in-water emulsions, the separation efficiencies were higher than 95 %, and flux was more than 3525.22 L m-2 h-1 for hexadecane octane and heptane in water emulsions, with an efficiency of >87.9 % and flux of 4186.20 L m-2 h-1 after three separation cycles. Moreover, the as-prepared membrane exhibited high performance of oil-water separation in harsh conditions, including strong acidic, strong basic, and strong salt solutions, with separation efficiencies of more than 98 % and flux of more than 12,700 L m-2 h-1. However, as water accumulated on the membrane surface, absorption and separation efficiency and flux were lowered significantly. This suggests the need to enhance the efficiency of the membrane and reduce the chance of water accumulation on the membrane surface.

People
Dansawad, Panchan
Author

Dansawad, Panchan and Li, Yanxiang and Cao, Lixia and Gao, Haigang and Yang, Chaoyong and Huang, Enming and You, Siming and Li, Wangliang (2024) An unmodified recycled Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) nanofibrous membrane for water-in-oil and oil-in-water emulsions separation. Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects, 696: 134335. ISSN 0927-7757

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Li, Yanxiang
Author

Dansawad, Panchan and Li, Yanxiang and Cao, Lixia and Gao, Haigang and Yang, Chaoyong and Huang, Enming and You, Siming and Li, Wangliang (2024) An unmodified recycled Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) nanofibrous membrane for water-in-oil and oil-in-water emulsions separation. Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects, 696: 134335. ISSN 0927-7757

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Cao, Lixia
Author

Dansawad, Panchan and Li, Yanxiang and Cao, Lixia and Gao, Haigang and Yang, Chaoyong and Huang, Enming and You, Siming and Li, Wangliang (2024) An unmodified recycled Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) nanofibrous membrane for water-in-oil and oil-in-water emulsions separation. Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects, 696: 134335. ISSN 0927-7757

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Gao, Haigang
Author

Dansawad, Panchan and Li, Yanxiang and Cao, Lixia and Gao, Haigang and Yang, Chaoyong and Huang, Enming and You, Siming and Li, Wangliang (2024) An unmodified recycled Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) nanofibrous membrane for water-in-oil and oil-in-water emulsions separation. Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects, 696: 134335. ISSN 0927-7757

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Yang, Chaoyong
Author

Dansawad, Panchan and Li, Yanxiang and Cao, Lixia and Gao, Haigang and Yang, Chaoyong and Huang, Enming and You, Siming and Li, Wangliang (2024) An unmodified recycled Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) nanofibrous membrane for water-in-oil and oil-in-water emulsions separation. Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects, 696: 134335. ISSN 0927-7757

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Huang, Enming
Author

Dansawad, Panchan and Li, Yanxiang and Cao, Lixia and Gao, Haigang and Yang, Chaoyong and Huang, Enming and You, Siming and Li, Wangliang (2024) An unmodified recycled Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) nanofibrous membrane for water-in-oil and oil-in-water emulsions separation. Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects, 696: 134335. ISSN 0927-7757

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You, Siming
Author

Gupta, Rohit and Murray, Cameron and Sloan, William T. and You, Siming (2025) Predicting the methane production of microwave-pretreated anaerobic digestion of food waste: a machine learning approach. Energy. ISSN 0360-5442 (In Press)

Dansawad, Panchan and Li, Yanxiang and Cao, Lixia and Gao, Haigang and Yang, Chaoyong and Huang, Enming and You, Siming and Li, Wangliang (2024) An unmodified recycled Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) nanofibrous membrane for water-in-oil and oil-in-water emulsions separation. Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects, 696: 134335. ISSN 0927-7757

Gupta, Rohit and Lee, Susan and Lui, Jade and Sloan, William and You, Siming (2024) Carbon footprint assessment of water and wastewater treatment works in Scottish islands. Journal of Cleaner Production, 450: 141650. ISSN 0959-6526

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Li, Wangliang
Author

Dansawad, Panchan and Li, Yanxiang and Cao, Lixia and Gao, Haigang and Yang, Chaoyong and Huang, Enming and You, Siming and Li, Wangliang (2024) An unmodified recycled Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) nanofibrous membrane for water-in-oil and oil-in-water emulsions separation. Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects, 696: 134335. ISSN 0927-7757

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Title:
An unmodified recycled Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) nanofibrous membrane for water-in-oil and oil-in-water emulsions separation
Creators:
Dansawad, Panchan and Li, Yanxiang and Cao, Lixia and Gao, Haigang and Yang, Chaoyong and Huang, Enming and You, Siming and Li, Wangliang
Identification Number:
doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.colsurfa.2024.134335
Date:
5 September 2024
Divisions:
College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Infrastructure and Environment
Publisher:
Elsevier
Additional Information:
We would like to thank the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (22078347), Key Research and Development Program of Hebei Province, China (21373303D), Zhongke Technology Achievement Transfer and Transformation Center of Henan Province (2024101), Distinguished Professor of Henan Province (220508001). Siming You would like to thank the financial support from the Royal Society International Exchange Scheme (EC\NSFC\211175).
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URI:
https://pub.demo35.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/163
Item Type:
Article
Depositing User:
Unnamed user with email ejo1f20@soton.ac.uk
Date Deposited:
11 Jun 2025 16:35
Revision:
27
Last Modified:
12 Jun 2025 11:43
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