Fabrication of Chitosan/ Recycled Polyethylene Terephtalate Nanofibrous Membrane for Oil-Water Separation

The preservation of marine ecosystems from human activity is one of the most severe challenges of our days. In particular, the oil/water separation from oil spills and oily wastewater is particularly important. For this reason, a low-cost, effective, and sustainable solution is highly demanded. In this work, a controlled-wettability membrane for selective oil-water mixtures and emulsions was developed. The nanofibrous membrane was prepared via the facile and cost-effective electrospinning technique, using environmentally sustainable materials such as recycled polyethylene terephthalate (r-PET) and chitosan. The effect of different concentrations of chitosan on the morphology, chemical composition, mechanical properties, wettability, and separation performance of the membrane was evaluated. The membranes exhibited an underoil superhydrophobic and underwater superoleophobic behavior, which is essential to perform the selective separation. In fact, the designed filter was found to have a really competitive anti-fouling property and high efficiency (> 95%) in heavy- and light-oil/water separation both for emulsion and immiscible mixtures.