Structural Engineering-Enabled Joule Heating Effect Cooperated with Capillary Effect Toward Fast Spreading of Droplets for High-Flux Separation of Viscous Emulsion.

Viscous emulsions with poor fluidity and high adhesion are extremely difficult to separate. Herein, high-flux separation of viscous emulsions is realized by developing structural engineered collagen fibers (CFs)-based composite membrane that featured 3D conductive hierarchical fiber structure with the spaced carbon nanofibers (CNFs) and activated carbon (AC) serving as conductive network and competitive adsorption-based demulsifying sites, respectively. The as-designed membrane structure boosts fast spreading of emulsion droplets on membrane surface aided by the synergistic effect of joule heat in situ generated by the spaced CNFs and the capillary effect derived from CFs, which guarantees the full contact of viscous emulsions with the spaced AC for achieving ultra-efficient demulsifying. The permeation of resultant oily filtrate is accelerated by the capillary effect of hierarchically fibrous structured CFs to exhibit fast transport kinetics, therefore accomplishing high-flux separation. The structural engineered membrane achieves high-performance separation toward different viscous emulsions (55.4-123.7 mPa·s) with separation efficiency >99.9% and flux high up to 259 L m h . The investigations provide a novel structural engineering strategy for realizing high-performance separation of viscous emulsions.