Special wettable underwater superoleophobic material for effective simultaneous removal of high viscous insoluble oils and soluble dyes from wastewater

Abstract Special wettability materials from bio-renewable and bioinspired materials can efficiently be utilized for the treatment of water insoluble pollutants but these materials mostly failed to remove water-soluble organic pollutants because of oil contamination, low water forbearance and complex synthetic procedures. In this view, we have prepared a biocompatible, superwetting polymer composite from natural gel forming materials ĸ-carrageenan (CGN) and poly(acrylamide-co-diallyldimethylammonium chloride) (PAm-DADAc) with graphene oxide (GO) possessing superhydrophilic and underwater superoleophobic properties. Prepared CGN-PAm-DADAc-GO composite were applied to separate oil from oil-water mixture, water-soluble dye effluents and dye containing emulsion separation. The CGN-PAm-DADAc-GO coated stainless-steel meshes demonstrated efficient oil-water separation exhibiting good superhydrophilicity, antifouling property and underwater superoleophobicity. Superhydrophilic nature of CGN-PAm-DADAc-GO composite has been utilized to remove water-soluble cationic and anionic azo dyes contamination at high efficiency 96% with freeze-dried samples. Hydrated layer formation with abundant surface functional groups like sulphate, amine and hydroxyl groups may boosts the simultaneous removal of insoluble oils and soluble dyes from the dye-contaminated emulsion through simply passing via CGN-PAm-DADAc-GO coated filter paper with emulsion flux about 40 L m-2 h-1 and 96% of separation efficiency. These composite materials may hold promising multipurpose applications as featured membrane fabrication material for simultaneous removal of various types of contaminations.