Fabrication Of Oil-Water Separation Membrane On Metal Substrates By Electrochemical Deposition And Its Performance

In the work,both stainless steel mesh and copper mesh were chosen as substrates,copper and zinc coated oil-water separation film with superhydrophobic and oleophylic were prepared on the above metal substrates by a simple electrochemical deposition.The effects of electrodeposition time,current,the amount of copper sulfate or zinc sulphate on the morphology of the products were studied,and their oil-water separation property and mechanical durability were studied.The main research contents and results are as followed:1.On the copper coated stainless steel mesh,several different structures such as octahedral,truncated octahedral structure as well as transient structures appeared during electrodeposition using copper sulfate as plating solution.With the increase of deposition time,the transient structure gradually disappeared,and small grains grew into large crystal grains,cubic structure appeared with the average side length of about 4.58μm.On the copper coated copper mesh,with the increase of deposition time,the grain grew from the initial small stone shape into large grain with a cubic structure.Under the same conditions,the nucleation on the copper mesh substrate is easier than that on the stainless steel mesh substrate.2.On the zinc coated stainless steel mesh,with the increase of deposition time,the morphology of the sample change from the initial polygon fence to stone embedded in the fence with the width of between 0.5μm and 1μm during electrodeposition using zinc sulphate solution as plating solution.On the zinc coated copper mesh,with the increase of deposition time,the polyhedral grains surrounded by the fence are also constantly growing.When the electrodeposition time is 90 s,the side length of the grain is between0.25μm and 0.7μm,and when the electrodeposition time is increased to 600 s,the side length of the grain is between 1μm and 2.1μm.Under the same conditions,the deposition rate on the stainless steel mesh substrate is faster than that on the copper mesh substrate,but the zinc morphology deposited on the copper mesh substrate is more regular than that on the stainless steel mesh substrate.3.With the increase of electrodeposition current,the size of the obtained copper or zinc is also gradually increasing.However,when the current is too large,the size of the grain will decrease slightly or increase very little.4.The wettability,adhesion,oil-water separation and mechanical durability of themesh obtained by electrodeposition on both substrates were tested.The experimental results show that the 4 systems of copper plating on stainless steel mesh,copper plating on copper mesh,zinc plating on stainless steel mesh and zinc plating on copper mesh all have superhydrophobic and oleophylic property,and have very low water adhesion,high oil-water separation rate and good mechanical durability.The four mesh films with the water contact angle of 160°,150.7°,161.07° and 163.86° were used to separate different kinds of oil-water mixtures.After repeated use of 7 times,the oil-water separation rate was above 95%,91%,95% and 94.5%,respectively.Meanwhile,the above 4 mesh films were used to test the mechanical durability.The results show that the average contact angle of water is reduced by about 5°,and the WCA of copper plating on stainless steel mesh,zinc plating on stainless steel mesh and zinc plating on copper mesh are more than150°,and have superhydrophobic property.