According to Interesting Engineering, researchers in China have unveiled a highly efficient new technology for separating oil and water mixtures.
The oil and water mixture will naturally separate if left to sit for a while. However, in industrial production processes, this separation must be accelerated and is extremely challenging.
The recycling process requires various methods, including centrifugation, oil skimming, and chemical reactions. However, these traditional methods are often time-consuming, energy-intensive, and inefficient.
The new Janus Channel of Membranes technology helps separate oil and water mixtures quickly.
Researchers at Zhejiang University in China have developed a new technology based on membrane filtration methods, called Janus Channel of Membranes (JCM), to address these challenges.
JCM is named after the ancient Roman god Janus, who is depicted with two faces. This name symbolizes the technology’s ability to simultaneously separate oil and water.
The research team’s documentation states that the new JCM technology utilizes two semi-permeable membranes: one hydrophilic and one hydrophobic. These membranes are activated by a channel that can be adjusted to widths ranging from 4 to 125 mm, optimizing the separation process.
Thanks to the narrow space between the two membranes, the recovery rates are impressively high, achieving 97% for oil and 75% for water, with impurities kept to a minimum.
Small oil droplets collide and then merge to form larger droplets that can pass through the hydrophobic membrane and flow into an external collection tank. Simultaneously, water molecules slip through the hydrophilic membrane and flow into another collection tank.
“When the oil-water emulsion must flow through the gap, water will pass through the hydrophilic membrane, increasing the oil concentration in the emulsion, which creates a higher permeation rate of oil through the hydrophobic membrane,” the authors explain in their research paper.
While conventional separation technologies typically isolate either oil or water from emulsions, this new technology allows researchers to recover both components.
This simple yet clever approach has yielded remarkable results. In laboratory tests, this technology enables the recovery of nearly 97% of oil and 75% of water from the mixture. The oil and water after separation have an extremely high purity level, reaching up to 99.9%.
Interestingly, this technology has the potential to be scaled up for larger operations. Industries such as petrochemicals, metallurgy, food processing, and pharmaceuticals generate vast amounts of oily wastewater that are challenging to treat. Therefore, JCM has the potential to significantly improve the sustainability of wastewater treatment processes.
