MOF-5 Based Mesh for the Separation of the Oil-Water Mixture

Abstract

The petroleum industry inevitably produces large amounts of oily wastewater. Environmentally permissible treatment of oily wastewater is a major problem for the petroleum industry. Nowadays, the focus has been an awareness of the treatment methods of oily wastewater. Therefore, oil-water separation has become a recent problem, and it must be explored and resolved by petroleum Industries. The paper investigates and discusses the challenge of treating oily wastewater in the petroleum industry and the recent focus on oil-water separation methods. The study presents the development of a metal-organic framework (MOF) coated mesh for this purpose. The MOF-5 are prepared using a solvothermal method and characterized using XRD and SEM. The coated mesh exhibits superoleophobic properties with a contact angle exceeding 150⁰, making it promising for oil-water separation. The study employs a two-stage process involving a mesh to remove macro-sized droplets and polish to remove nanosized droplets. Gas chromatography - flame ionization detector (GC-FID) is used to characterize total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPHs) and separation efficiency. The results indicate a reduction of TPHs to 5 ppm and 98% separation efficiency after treatment.