Huang, K;
Rowe, P;
Chi, C;
Sreepal, V;
Bohn, T;
Zhou, K-G;
Su, Y;
... Nair, RR; + view all
(2020)
Cation-controlled wetting properties of vermiculite membranes and its promise for fouling resistant oil–water separation.
Nature Communications
, 11
(1)
, Article 1097. 10.1038/s41467-020-14854-4.
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Abstract
Manipulating the surface energy, and thereby the wetting properties of solids, has promise for various physical, chemical, biological and industrial processes. Typically, this is achieved by either chemical modification or by controlling the hierarchical structures of surfaces. Here we report a phenomenon whereby the wetting properties of vermiculite laminates are controlled by the hydrated cations on the surface and in the interlamellar space. We find that vermiculite laminates can be tuned from superhydrophilic to hydrophobic simply by exchanging the cations; hydrophilicity decreases with increasing cation hydration free energy, except for lithium. The lithium-exchanged vermiculite laminate is found to provide a superhydrophilic surface due to its anomalous hydrated structure at the vermiculite surface. Building on these findings, we demonstrate the potential application of superhydrophilic lithium exchanged vermiculite as a thin coating layer on microfiltration membranes to resist fouling, and thus, we address a major challenge for oil-water separation technology.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Cation-controlled wetting properties of vermiculite membranes and its promise for fouling resistant oil–water separation |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41467-020-14854-4 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-14854-4 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2020 Springer Nature Limited. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
| Keywords: | Graphene, Nanoscale materials, Surfaces, interfaces and thin films |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Physics and Astronomy |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10093466 |
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