3D-Printed Anti-Fouling Cellulose Mesh for Highly Efficient Oil/Water Separation Applications

The ability of additive manufacturing to print mesh structure was exploited to fabricate highly efficient filtration meshes for oil/water separation applications. Through Direct Ink Writing (DIW) technique, pure cellulose acetate with a mesh architecture can be created easily, using cellulose acetate/ethyl acetate solution as the ink and simply drying off the solvent in ambient conditions. Besides conventional mesh structures, more complex structures can be fabricated in order to manipulate the pore size and hence tune the separation properties of the mesh. The superhydrophilic 3D-printed cellulose meshes are able to achieve a high separation efficiency of >95% as long as the average pore size is smaller than 280 μm. More importantly, the mesh that possesses an unconventional complex structure boasts a separation efficiency of ∼99% while maintaining a high water flux of ∼160 000 Lm^2-h^-1. The 3D-printed cellulose meshes are also able to separate oil substances of a wide range of viscosity, from highly viscous PDMS (∼97 cP) to nonviscous cyclohexane (∼1 cP) and are chemically resistant to extreme acidic and alkaline conditions. Moreover, the 3D-printed cellulose meshes also possess antioil-fouling/self-cleaning ability, which makes its surfaces resilient to contamination. In addition, the 3D-printed meshes do not suffer from surface inhomogeneity and interfacial adhesion issues as compared to the usual coated meshes. Such a robust yet practical system is highly applicable for highly efficient oil-water separation applications.