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Updated: Feb 13, 2026

Microfluidic Devices for Characterizing Pore-scale Event Processes in Porous Media for Oil Recovery Applications
Published on: January 16, 2018
Poly(vinylidene Fluoride-Hexafluoropropylene) Porous Membrane with Controllable Structure and Applications in
Xinya Wang1, Changfa Xiao2, Hailiang Liu3
1State Key Laboratory of Separation Membranes and Membrane Processes, National Center for International Joint Research on Separation Membranes, Tianjin Polytechnic University, No. 399, Binshui Road, Xiqing District, Tianjin 300387, China. wangxy0914@163.com.
Abstract:
Poly(vinylidene fluoride-hexafluoropropylene) (PVDF-HFP) porous membranes are fabricated via thermally induced phase separation (TIPS) with mixed diluent (dibutyl phthalate (DBP)/dioctyl phthalate (DOP)). The effects of mixed diluent are discussed in detail in term of morphology, mean pore size, selective wettability, etc. The results show that the membrane structure changes from spherulitic to bicontinuous with the change of DBP/DOP ratio. It is also found that the degree of crystallization decreases with the decrease of DBP/DOP ratio in mixed diluent. When liquid-liquid (L-L) phase separation precedes solid-liquid (S-L) phase separation, the obtained membranes have outstanding hydrophobicity and lipophilicity, excellent mechanical property. Additionally, the PVDF-HFP hybrid membranes are prepared with silica (SiO₂) particles and the effect of SiO₂ content on structure and properties is discussed. It is found that the PVDF-HFP hybrid membrane with 2 wt % SiO₂ (M3-S2) has better properties and higher filtration rate and separation efficiency for surfactant-stabilized water-in-oil emulsion separation. Moreover, the membrane M3-S2 also exhibits excellent antifouling performance for long-running.
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