Tunable nanostructured stainless-steel coating for high-selective and high-permeable separation membranes for oil/water emulsions

Abstract This paper demonstrates a stainless-steel (SS) nano-pyramid structure (diameter of ~20–50 nm and pore size 156.1 nm) sputter-coated on mixed cellulose ester (MCE) membrane for the use in separation oil/water emulsions. SS-coated MCE presented superhydrophilic, antifouling surface as well underwater superoleophobicity. The coated achieved excellent efficiency >99% when applied to light oil-water emulsions with range viscosities densities. highest permeation flux measured was 1,555 L m −2 h −1 toluene-in-water also outstanding recyclability, evidenced by oil rejection rate retaining at through four cycles. shown work under harsh conditions including salty water, extreme pH values (1–14), high temperatures (60 °C). In addition, our fabrication route employs low process temperature while being highly scalable, which is favorable industrial-scale applications.