Multifunctional starch-based material for contaminated emulsions separation and purification

Fan Zhang; Hui Chi; Chao Wang; Xinyue Wang; Yinchuan Wang; Hao Zhang; Kun Xu; Yungang Bai; Pixin Wang

doi:10.1016/j.carbpol.2021.118354

Multifunctional starch-based material for contaminated emulsions separation and purification

Carbohydr Polym. 2021 Oct 1:269:118354. doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2021.118354. Epub 2021 Jun 18.

Authors

Fan Zhang¹, Hui Chi², Chao Wang¹, Xinyue Wang¹, Yinchuan Wang², Hao Zhang², Kun Xu³, Yungang Bai⁴, Pixin Wang¹

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Polymer Ecomaterials, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130022, PR China; University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, PR China.
² Key Laboratory of Polymer Ecomaterials, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130022, PR China.
³ Key Laboratory of Polymer Ecomaterials, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130022, PR China. Electronic address: xukun@ciac.ac.cn.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Polymer Ecomaterials, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130022, PR China. Electronic address: byungang@ciac.ac.cn.

PMID: 34294356
DOI: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2021.118354

Abstract

Stable water-in-oil (W/O) emulsions can produce at many industrial production occasions. However, most materials for its separation have serious fouling problems. To overcome this shortcoming, we fabricated an easy cleaning multifunctional starch-based material with unique wetting behavior which could realize efficient separation and purification of W/O emulsions. This material has a hierarchical structure and superoleophilic and under oil superhydrophobic surfaces which could separate various W/O emulsions in a high separation efficiency and flux without external pressure. In addition, the decrease of separation flux was not observed for this material, which can be reused more than 10 times after washing with ethanol and drying after each separation cycle. Furthermore, this material also could realize efficient removal of dyes and heavy-metal and rare-earth ions simultaneously during a separation process. The material shows great potential for separating and purifying stable W/O emulsions produced during the industrial production.

Keywords: Dyes; Heavy-metal and rare-earth ions; Pickering emulsion polymerization; Starch-based nanoparticles; Water-in-oil emulsion.