Mussel-Inspired Chemistry and Michael Addition Reaction for Efficient Oil/Water Separation

Abstract

An oil/water separation mesh with high separation efficiency and intrusion pressure of water has been successfully developed by combining mussel-inspired chemistry and Michael addition reaction. The substrate of the stainless steel mesh was first coated with the adhesive polydopamine (PDA) film by simple immersion in an aqueous solution of dopamine at pH of 8.5. Then n-dodecyl mercaptan (NDM) was conjugated with PDA film through Michael addition reaction at ambient temperature. The as-prepared mesh showed highly hydrophobicity with the water contact angle of 144° and superoleophilicity with the oil contact angle of 0°. It can be used to separate a series of oil/water mixtures like gasoline, diesel, etc. The separation efficiency remains high after 30 times use (99.95% for hexane/water mixture). More importantly, the relatively high intrusion pressure (2.2 kPa) gives the opportunity to separation of large amount of oil and water mixtures. This study provides a new prospect to simply introduce multiple molecules on the adhesive PDA-based mesh to achieve various functional oil/water separation materials.

Recent progress in developing advanced membranes for emulsified oil/water separation

“…Many superwetting materials have been fabricated by designing in combination with surface chemistry and roughness and have been applied to oil/water separation. 84,[86][87][88][89][90] Unfortunately, most of these materials are fabricated through coating water-avoiding or water-favoring materials on mesh-like substrates. Owing to the micrometer scale pores of the substrates, the substrates can only be applied for the separation of immiscible oil/water mixtures but are not suitable for emulsions because emulsions usually have much smaller droplet sizes.…”

Preparation of amine functionalized carbon nanotubes via a bioinspired strategy and their application in Cu2+ removal

“…There will be formed a thin film on the surface of the objects via dopamine self-polymerization; the polydopamine (PDA) coatings was found to be an extremely versatile platform for secondary reactions, leading to forming of multifunctional surface applied in many fields [38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45]. Very recently, we also demonstrated that well dispersed CNTs could be facilely obtained by surface modification with 3-mercapto-1-propanesulfonic acid sodium salt (MPS), normal dodecanethiol (NDM) and polymers via combination of mussel inspired chemistry and Michael addition reaction [22,23,46].…”

Enhanced removal capability of kaolin toward methylene blue by mussel-inspired functionalization

“…It is well-known that the selfpolymerization of dopamine can coat on a large number of material surfaces for the adhesion of PDA. More importantly, the PDA coatings can provide an active platform for further surface modification through different strategies including surface initiated polymerization, free radical polymerization, and Michael addition reaction [42][43][44][45][46][47][48]. In this work, the PSPSH polymer terminated with amino group was first synthesized via free radical polymerization using cysteamine hydrochloride as the chain transfer agent and SPSH as the monomer.…”