The microbe-loaded silica hollow spheres doped PVDF membrane prepared by green solvent casting method for efficient oil-water separation

Superhydrophobic membrane that is highly resistant to wetting by aqueous solution has gained great attention because of its potential to be applied in many emerging membrane processes such as oil/water separation. In this paper, we report the design and preparation of novel composite membranes with anti-fouling and anti-plugging performance by dopping of microbe-loaded silica hollow spheres into PVDF membrane by green solvent casting method for efficient oil-water separation, named after STEP/PVDF-SHMs. The as-prepared composite membranes shows that The prepared composite membranes showed superhydrophobicity with hydrophobicity angle reaching 153.2° and excellent self-cleaning ability. Meanwhile, the STEP/PVDF-SHMs membrane has excellent continuous oil-water separation performance, and the cyclic separation efficiency of light oil can reach >98 % through 10 times of continuous oil-water separation experiments. Under the premise of oil-water separation, it still has excellent degradation ability, and the membrane can remove up to 90.79 % of 5 % diesel oil degradation in 240 h, which is far more than similar materials. With the advantages of excellent membrane flux (membrane flux 1440 L m⁻² h⁻¹), excellent chemical stability, large-scale usability, easy shape control, low cost, reproducibility and sustainability, such composite membranes may have great potential for practical applications for the treatment of oily wastewater.