Fabrication of Anatase TiO2/PVDF Composite Membrane for Oil-in-Water Emulsion Separation and Dye Photocatalytic Degradation

At present, the types of pollutants in wastewater are more and more complicated, however, the multifunctional membrane materials are in short supply. To prepare a membrane with both high efficient oil-in-water emulsion separation performance and photocatalytic degradation performance of organic dyes, the bifunctional separation membrane was successfully prepared by electrostatic spinning technology of PVDF/PEMA and in situ deposition of anatase TiO2 nanoparticles containing Ti3+ and oxygen vacancies (O-v). The prepared composite membrane has excellent hydrophilic properties (WCA = 15.65), underwater oleophobic properties (UOCA = 156.69), and photocatalytic performance. These composite membranes have high separation efficiency and outstanding anti-fouling performance, the oil removal efficiency reaches 98.95%, and the flux recovery rate (FRR) reaches 99.19% for soybean oil-in-water emulsion. In addition, the composite membrane has outstanding photocatalytic degradation performance, with 97% and 90.2% degradation of RhB and AG-25 under UV conditions, respectively. Several oil-in-water separation and dye degradation experiments show that the PVDF composite membrane has excellent reuse performance. Based on these results, this study opens new avenues for the preparation of multifunctional reusable membranes for the water treatment field.