Energy-Efficient Oil-Water Separation of Biomimetic Copper Membrane with Multiscale Hierarchical Dendritic Structures

Membrane-based materials with special surface wettability have been applied widely for the treatment of increasing industrial oily waste water, as well as frequent oil spill accidents. However, traditional technologies are energy-intensive and limited, either by fouling or by the inability of a single membrane to separate all types of oil-water mixtures. Herein, a biomimetic monolayer copper membrane (BMCM), composed of multiscale hierarchical dendritic structures, is cleverly designed and successfully fabricated on steel mesh substrate. It not only possesses the ability of energy-efficient oil-water separation but also excellent self-recovery anti-oil-fouling properties (<150 s). The BMCM even keeps high separation efficiency (>93%) after ten-time cycling tests. More importantly, it retains efficient oil-water separation capacity for five different oils. In fact, these advanced features are benefited by the synergistic effect of chemical compositions and physical structures, which is inspired by the typical nonwetting strategy of butterfly wing scales. The findings in this work may inspire a facile but effective strategy for repeatable and antipollution oil-water separation, which is more suitable for various applications under practical conditions, such as wastewater treatment, fuel purification, separation of commercially relevant oily water, and so forth.