Dove e quando

Emulsified oily wastewaters are produced as consequence of numerous industrial processes (petrochemical, pharmaceutical, polymer, metal, cosmetic, textile, and food industries), presenting severe environmental and health risks. Filtration and absorption processes seem to be the most promising approaches for the removal of emulsified oil using porous polymer materials. With the aim to contribute to the treatment of this persistent problem both different remediation approaches (absorption and filtration) are studied in this work. To achieve a good water-oil separation performance, different materials were developed and also subsequently functionalized to provide them with the necessary wetting properties for this application. For instance, it is reported the use of laser irradiation to develop membranes with high oil-water selectivity, increasing the roughness of nanocomposite polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) films, and turning its usual hydrophobic behaviour into superhydrophobic. Secondly, it is describe the production of electrospun fibrous mats, and their performance as oil absorbents from stable water-oil emulsions. In particular, hydrophobic and superoleophilic poly(methy methacrylate) (PMMA)-based microfibers were developed by electrospinning. It was found that the incorporation of ferromagnetic NPs to the polymer matrix increases the oil removal performance of the fibers, as well as attributes magnetic actuation properties to the material. Furthermore, an appropriate combination of the PMMA and polycaprolactone (PCL) allowed to obtain fibrous mats with high oil recovery efficiency. In addition, the performance of these fibrous mats was further improved with the addition of Si NPs, which increased the selectivity of the fibrous mats. Two kind of polymer foams were studied with the same aim. On the one hand superhydrophilic PDMS foams were obtained by the sugar leaching technique. These foams presented a superhydrophilic behavior due to the incorporation of PEO-b-PDMS as a surfactant additive into the polymeric matrix. On the other hand, commercial polyurethane (PU) foams were studied. In particular, poly-tetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) (Teflon) particles and Silica NPs were employed in the treatments leading to an increase of the oil/water selectivity of the PU foams. Info about the Speaker: PhD student in Smart Materials, Nanophysics at Italian Institute of Technology

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