Modification of poly(vinylidene fluoride) membranes with aluminum oxide nanowires and graphene oxide nanosheets for oil–water separation

To improve the hydrophilic and oleophobic properties of membrane, we adopted aluminum oxide (Al2O3) nanowires and graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets to modify poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) membranes. The experimental results show that the intercalation of Al2O3 nanowires between GO nanosheets effectively improved the roughness of the GO-Al2O3-PVDF membrane, and the permeability of the membrane with an optimal mass ratio of Al2O3 to GO of 7.5 was 31 times that of the GO-PVDF membrane. Furthermore, the addition of Al2O3 nanowires significantly enhanced both the hydrophilic and oleophobic properties of the GO-Al2O3-PVDF membrane. On the basis of the extended Derjaguin-Landau-Verwey-Overbeek theory, the energy barriers between the oil droplets and GO-PVDF and GO-Al2O3-PVDF membranes were 0.63 and 0.9 KT, respectively; this indicated improvements in the anti-oil-fouling ability of the GO-Al2O3-PVDF membranes. We also found that both the GO-PVDF and GO-Al2O3-PVDF membranes had great oil-water separation rates (97.9 and 99.4%, respectively) with an initial oil concentration of 200 mg/L. The findings of this study show that the GO-Al2O3-PVDF membrane is a promising oil-water separation membrane, and further investigation of the cleaning procedure is needed to promote its practical application in oil-water separation. (c) 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019, 136, 47493.