Electrically conductive hydrophobic membrane cathode for membrane distillation with super anti-oil-fouling capability: Performance and mechanism

This study mainly focused on enhancing oil-membrane electrostatic repulsion towards anti-oil-fouling via electrically conductive hydrophobic membrane in electricity-assisted membrane distillation (MD). Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were coated on commercial membranes to fabricate membrane cathode. For concentrated hexadecane-in-saline water emulsions, the modified membrane exhibited significantly less flux decline, < 5% in dealing with extreme high-concentration oil emulsion (2000 ppm) at cell potential of 3.0 V. The anti-oil-fouling robustness was further confirmed over a continuous three-cycle operation with in-situ DI rinse. The anti-fouling mechanism was systematically discussed regarding the hydrophilicity of the membrane interface, charge repulsion between the oil and membrane cathode as well as slippery property at the liquid-gas-solid triple-phase interface. A modeled fouling rate constant was negatively associated with the calculated capacitive surface charge of the membrane cathode. Thermodynamics analysis suggested enhanced foulant-membrane electrostatic repulsion leads to a significant energy barrier which favored anti-fouling performance. Interestingly, the sliding dynamics of oil droplet along the interface of membrane cathode was found, tuned by the herein weak cell potential, which could also contribute to the fouling mitigation. Our results insight that the electrically conductive membrane cathode could modulate the foulant-membrane interaction which plays an important role in mitigating fouling/wetting occurred at the triple-phase interface.