Salt‐Induced Fabrication of Superhydrophilic and Underwater Superoleophobic PAA‐g‐PVDF Membranes for Effective Separation of Oil‐in‐Water Emulsions

Conventional polymer membranes suffer from low flux and serious fouling when used for treating emulsified oil/water mixtures. Reported herein is the fabrication of a novel superhydrophilic and underwater superoleophobic poly(acrylic acid)-grafted PVDF filtration membrane using a salt-induced phase-inversion approach. A hierarchical micro/nanoscale structure is constructed on the membrane surface and endows it with a superhydrophilic/underwater superoleophobic property. The membrane separates both surfactant-free and surfactant-stabilized oil-in-water emulsions under either a small applied pressure (