Preparation and properties of superhydrophobic/superoleophilic film for the separation of oil and water based on high density polyethylene/styrene-butadiene rubber thermoplastic vulcanizate

Abstract

High density polyethylene (HDPE)/styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) thermoplastic vulcanizates (TPV) were prepared by dynamic vulcanization and metallographic sandpapers were used as the template to prepare a series of molded HDPE/SBR TPV films with super hydrophobicity.The influence of sandpaper type on the hydrophobi-city and the stability of molded HDPE/SBR TPV films were studied systematically.Moreover, a new oil-water separating equipment was constructed which could achieve continuous oil-water operation.The influence of different film gap and relative vacuum degree on the oil-water separation were researched and the microstructure of the surface of the molded HDPE/SBR TPV films was observed and mechanism of oil-water separation behavior was proposed.The result showed that when the metallographic sandpaper with W 14 type was used as template, the water contact angle of the molded HDPE/SBR TPV surface was 159.2 ° and the rolling angle of the molded HDPE/SBR TPV surface was just 7.2 °.When the film gap of the molded HDPE/SBR TPV film in the oil-water separating equipment and the relative vacuum were 50 μm and 3 kPa respectively, the optimal oil-water separating performance could be reached with the separation efficiency of up to 98.52%.

Keywords

• dynamic vulcanization
• high density polyethylene
• styrene-butadiene rubber
• template method
• super hydrophobicity
• oil-water separation