Facile fabrication of superhydrophobic and superoleophilic green ceramic hollow fiber membrane derived from waste sugarcane bagasse ash for oil/water separation

Green ceramic hollow fiber membranes with superhydrophobic and superoleophilic surfaces (ss-CHFM/WSBA) were successfully fabricated via facile sol–gel process using tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) and methyltriethoxysilane (MTES) as precursors. In this work, silica solution was prepared using the modified Stöber method. This process was followed by dipping the pristine membranes into the sol–gel solution at various grafting times (0–90 min), grafting cycles (0–4 cycles), and calcination temperatures (400–600 °C). The wettability, surface morphology, and chemical composition of the pristine and ss-CHFM/WSBA membranes were investigated. The results showed that increasing the grafting time has increased the wettability of ss-CHFM/WSBA with high contact angle of up to 163.9°. Similarly, increasing grafting cycle has enhanced the hydrophobicity of ss-CHFM/WSBA due to the formation of hierarchical structure of grafting cycle which were more than one. The optimum calcination temperature for ss-CHFM/WSBA was identified. It was found that increasing the calcination temperature has degraded the sol template on the surface of ss-CHFM/WSBA, hence decreasing the wettability. The preliminary performance tests showed that ss-CHFM/WSBA grafted at 60 min, 3 cycles, and calcined at 400 °C showed excellent oil/water separation efficiency of 99.9% and oil flux of 137.2 L/m2h.