TY - JOUR
T1 - Solvent-Thermal Induced Roughening: a Novel and Versatile Method to Prepare Superhydrophobic Membranes
AU - Qing, Weihua
AU - Shi, Xiaonan
AU - Zhang, Weidong
AU - Wang, Jianqiang
AU - Wu, Yifan
AU - Wang, Peng
AU - Tang, Chuyang Y.
N1 - KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-04-23
Acknowledged KAUST grant number(s): OSR-2017-CPF-3320
Acknowledgements: This publication is based upon work supported by the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) Office of Sponsored Research (OSR) under Award No. OSR-2017-CPF-3320. The authors also acknowledge the partial financial support from the NSFC/RGC Joint Research Scheme sponsored by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (N_HKU706/16).
PY - 2018/7/18
Y1 - 2018/7/18
N2 - Surface roughness enhancement by fabricating multi-scale nano/microstructure is an effective strategy to prepare superhydrophobic membranes. Here we report a novel solvent-thermal induced roughening (STIR) method. The method involves the swelling of a polymer surface to create a soft shell/hard core structure under the combined action of solvent and heating, followed by a controllable surface roughening as a result of mismatched thermal expansion between the shell and the core. We show a significant increase of surface roughness for a STIR-treated polyvinylidene fluoride nanofibrous membrane, whose nanofibers were covered with densely-packed nanofins. The treated membrane had greatly enhanced hydrophobicity, resulting in improved anti-wetting performance to low-surface-tension feed water in a membrane distillation process. The STIR method was capable of treating membranes with various pore structures. The novel surface roughening strategy opens up new directions to fabricate superhydrophobic surfaces and membranes, which can greatly benefit a wide range of applications such as membrane distillation, oil/water separation.
AB - Surface roughness enhancement by fabricating multi-scale nano/microstructure is an effective strategy to prepare superhydrophobic membranes. Here we report a novel solvent-thermal induced roughening (STIR) method. The method involves the swelling of a polymer surface to create a soft shell/hard core structure under the combined action of solvent and heating, followed by a controllable surface roughening as a result of mismatched thermal expansion between the shell and the core. We show a significant increase of surface roughness for a STIR-treated polyvinylidene fluoride nanofibrous membrane, whose nanofibers were covered with densely-packed nanofins. The treated membrane had greatly enhanced hydrophobicity, resulting in improved anti-wetting performance to low-surface-tension feed water in a membrane distillation process. The STIR method was capable of treating membranes with various pore structures. The novel surface roughening strategy opens up new directions to fabricate superhydrophobic surfaces and membranes, which can greatly benefit a wide range of applications such as membrane distillation, oil/water separation.
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10754/630668
UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376738818308147
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85050540471&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.memsci.2018.07.035
DO - 10.1016/j.memsci.2018.07.035
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85050540471
VL - 564
SP - 465
EP - 472
JO - Journal of Membrane Science
JF - Journal of Membrane Science
SN - 0376-7388
ER -