%N 6
%R 10.3390/polym13060976
%D 2021
%J Polymers
%L scholars15111
%O cited By 14
%X Wastewater containing oil/water emulsion has a serious ecological impact and threatens human health. The impact worsens as its volume increases. Oil/water emulsion needs to be treated before it is discharged or reused again for processing. A membrane-based process is considered attractive in effectively treating oil/water emulsion, but progress has been dampened by the membrane fouling issue. The objective of this study is to develop polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membranes customized for oil/water emulsion separation by incorporating assembly of tannic acid (TA) and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) in the polymer matrix. The results show that the assembly of TA/PVP complexation was achieved as observed from the change in colour during the phase inversion and as also proven from the characterization analyses. Incorporation of the TA/PVP assembly leads to enhanced surface hydrophilicity by lowering the contact angle from 82° to 47°. In situ assembly of the TA/PVP complex also leads to enhanced clean water permeability by a factor of four as a result of enhanced mean flow pore size from 0.2 to 0.9 µm. Owing to enhanced surface chemistry and structural advantages, the optimum hydrophilic PVDF/TA/PVP membrane poses permeability of 540.18 L/(m2 h bar) for oil/water emulsion filtration, three times higher than the pristine PVDF membrane used as the reference. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
%K Contact angle; Emulsification; Flavonoids; Fluorine compounds; Hydrophilicity; Membrane fouling; Membranes; Pore size; Surface chemistry; Tannins, Ecological impacts; Enhanced surface; Membrane-based process; Oil/water emulsion; Polyvinyl pyrrolidone; Polyvinylidene fluoride membranes; Structural advantage; Wastewater containing oil, Microfiltration
%I MDPI AG
%A N.I.M. Nawi
%A S.O. Amat
%A M.R. Bilad
%A N.A.H.M. Nordin
%A N. Shamsuddin
%A S. Prayogi
%A T. Narkkun
%A K. Faungnawakij
%V 13
%T Development of polyvinylidene fluoride membrane via assembly of tannic acid and polyvinylpyrrolidone for filtration of oil/water emulsion