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Green Fabrication of Underwater Superoleophobic Biopolymeric Nanofibrous Membranes for Effective Oil–Water Separation

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Abstract

Currently, most of the materials for oil–water separation membranes are limited to fluorine-based polymers with low surface energy. However, it is not biodegradable and requires large amounts of organic and toxic solvents in the membrane manufacturing process. Therefore, interest in the development of a new eco-friendly oil–water separation membrane that does not cause secondary pollution and exhibits selective wettability characteristics in water or oil is increasing. The biopolymeric nanofibrous membranes inspired by fish skin can provide specific underwater oleophobicity, which is effective for excellent oil–water separation efficiency and prevention of secondary contamination. Fish gelatin, which is highly soluble in water and has a low gelation temperature, can be electrospun in an aqueous solution and has the same polar functional groups as the hydrophilic mucilage of fish skin. In addition, the micro/nanostructure of fish skin, which induces superoleophobicity in water, introduces a bead-on-string structure using the Rayleigh instability of electrospinning. The solubility of fish gelatin in water was removed using an eco-friendly crosslinking method using reducing sugars. Fish skin-mimicking materials successfully separated suspended oil and emulsified oil, with a maximum flux of 2086 Lm−2 h−1 and a separation efficiency of more than 99%. The proposed biopolymeric nanofibrous membranes use fish gelatin, which can be extracted from fish waste and has excellent biodegradability with excellent oil–water separation performance. In addition, polymer material processing, including membrane manufacturing and crosslinking, can be realized through eco-friendly processes. Therefore, fish skin-inspired biopolymeric membrane is expected to be a promising candidate for a sustainable and effective oil–water separation membrane in the future.

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The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was also supported by the Technology Innovation Program (20018540) funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE, Korea). This research was also supported by the Basic Science Research Program of the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), funded by the Ministry of Education (NRF-2021R1A4A2001403).

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Author notes

  1. Subin Oh and Junsik Bang contributed equally to work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Program in Environmental and Polymer Engineering, Inha University, 100 Inha-Ro, Michuhol-Gu, Incheon, 22212, South Korea

    Subin Oh & Hyoung-Joon Jin

  2. Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Bioresources, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, 1 Gwanak-Ro, Gwanak-Gu, Seoul, 08826, South Korea

    Junsik Bang & Hyo Won Kwak

  3. Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Inha University, 100 Inha-Ro, Michuhol-Gu, Incheon, 22212, South Korea

    Hyoung-Joon Jin

  4. Research Institute of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, 1 Gwanak-Ro, Gwanak-Gu, Seoul, 08826, South Korea

    Hyo Won Kwak

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  1. Subin Oh
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Contributions

SO: investigation; methodology; writing—review and editing. JB: methodology, writing—review and editing. H-JJ: supervision, conceptualization, resources, writing—review and editing. HWK: supervision, conceptualization, writing—review and editing.

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Correspondence to Hyoung-Joon Jin or Hyo Won Kwak.

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Oh, S., Bang, J., Jin, HJ. et al. Green Fabrication of Underwater Superoleophobic Biopolymeric Nanofibrous Membranes for Effective Oil–Water Separation. Adv. Fiber Mater. 5, 603–616 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42765-022-00251-7

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