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Chemical Research in Chinese Universities ›› 2023, Vol. 39 ›› Issue (1): 107-108.doi: 10.1007/s40242-023-2320-1

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Superhydrophobicity-improved Ethanol-Water Separation

XU Lei1, CHEN Linfeng1,2, XIA Fan1,2,3   

  1. 1. Faculty of Materials Science and Chemistry, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 430074, P. R. China;
    2. State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 430074, P. R. China;
    3. Engineering Research Center of Nano-Geomaterials of Ministry of Education, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 430074, P. R. China
  • Received:2022-11-25 Online:2023-02-01 Published:2023-02-02
  • Contact: CHEN Linfeng E-mail:chenlinfeng@cug.edu.cn
  • Supported by:
    This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Nos.2021YFA1200403, 2018YFE0206900), the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Nos.22275171, 22090050, 21874121), the Joint NSFC-ISF Research Grant Program, China(No.22161142020), the Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province, China(No.2020CFA037), and the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation, China(No.LD21B050001).

Abstract: Efficient separation of biofuels from fermentation broths vis pervaporation plays an important role in addressing the global challenges, such as developing renewable energy. Great efforts have been continuously devoted in the past decades to developing high-performance pervaporation membranes. A recent report published in Science by Zhao et al. showed that a superhydrophobic surface could contribute significantly to improving the pervaporation separation of ethanol-water mixture, which will generate broad interest for the new design of separation membranes.

Key words: Pervaporation, Biofuel, Superhydrophobicity, Polydimethylsiloxane(PDMS), Permeation flux