Robust polypropylene/ethylene-propylene-diene terpolymer thermoplastic vulcanizates film for green oil–water separation

Super-hydrophobic/super-oleophilic materials for oil–water separation as well as separation methods have been a hot research field. Based on this, we propose a fancy method for continuous oil–water separation, which is different from the conventional gravity-driven method and permeation-type oil–water separation. It will be mentioned that the soft PP/EPDM TPV film was convoluted and assembled into the through-valve, and the gap among the films were acted as the pressure response channel for oil–water separation. Moreover, the functional PP/EPDM TPV films (oil–water contact angles of 0° and 155.2° ± 0.7°) were used directly for oil/water separation of mixtures containing water/non-polar oil and water/polar oil, due to the super-hydrophobic/under-oil super-hydrophobicity and super-oleophilic/under-water super-oleophilicity. The durably TPV films manifested desirable separation performance in oil–water mixtures, maintaining a separation efficiency of 98.0% for 25 cycles at a film gap of 50 μm and a critical pressure of 4 kPa. The new functional TPV film for continuous oil–water separation was recyclable, self-cleaning and easy to industrialize, indicating its great potential for practical applications.