Nonpolar cross-stacked super-aligned carbon nanotube membrane for efficient wastewater treatment

Highlights

● A novel nonpolar super-aligned carbon nanotube (SACNT) membrane was prepared.

● SACNT membranes achieved smoother and more uniform structures.

● SACNT membranes have inert chemistry and unique nonpolar wetting feature.

● SACNT membranes exhibit superior separation and antifouling capabilities.

● SACNT membranes achieved superior oil/water separation efficiency.

Abstract

Membrane separation technology has made great progress in various practical applications, but the unsatisfactory separation performance of prevailing membrane materials hampers its further sustainable growth. This study proposed a novel nonpolar super-aligned carbon nanotube (SACNT) membrane, which was prepared with a layer-by-layer cross-stacking method. Through controlling the number of stacked SACNT layers, three kinds of SACNT membranes (SACNT_200, SACNT_300, and SACNT_400) were prepared. Systematic characterizations and filtration tests were performed to investigate their physico-chemical properties, surface wetting behavior, and filtration performance. Compared with two commercial membranes (Com_0.22 and Com_0.45), all the SACNT membranes achieved smoother and more uniform structures. Due to the hexagonal graphene structure of CNTs, the surface chemistry of the SACNT membranes is simple and inert, thereby potentially eliminating the covalent-bonding-induced membrane fouling. Besides, the SACNT membranes exhibited a typical nonpolar wetting behavior, with high contact angles for polar liquids (water: ~124.9°–126.5°; formamide: ~80.0°–83.9°) but low contact angles for nonpolar diiodomethane (~18.8°–20.9°). This unique nonpolar feature potentially leads to weak interactions with polar substances. Furthermore, compared with the commercial membranes, the SACNT membranes obtained a significantly higher selectivity while achieving a comparable or higher permeability (depending on the number of stacked layers). Moreover, the SACNT membranes exhibited superior separation performance in various application scenarios, including municipal wastewater treatment (> 2.3 times higher cleaning efficiency), electro-assistant fouling inhibition (or even self-cleaning), and oil/water separation (> 99.2 % of separation efficiency), suggesting promising application prospects in various fields.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Membrane fouling / Wastewater / Membrane separation / Antifouling / Aligned carbon nanotube

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2021ZY76), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 52170022), the special fund of State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control (No. 20K02ESPCT), and the Beijing Municipal Education Commission through the Innovative Transdisciplinary Program “Ecological Environment of Urban and Rural Human Settlements (GJJXK210105)”.

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-023-1630-3 and is accessible for authorized users.

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