Controllable Janus porous membrane with liquids manipulation for diverse intelligent energy-free applications.

A facile and tunable strategy is proposed to fabricate the Janus porous membrane (JPM) comprising hydrophobic and controlled-hydrophilic wetting surfaces. The control over the wettability of hydrophilic surface is well achieved by tuning the temperature, reaction time, and surface modification. The JPM has directional cross-plane water transport ability, which is demonstrated in water harvest. The prepared JPM exhibits an interesting cross-plane unidirectional selectivity for oil transport at oil-water interface. The synergistic effect developed due to the directional oil transport and charge-screening, which offered an efficient separation of both the heavy oil and light oil from oil-in-water emulsions utilizing large pore size JPM. This easy-to-prepare and tunable strategy endows the JPM with many practical applications that is important for the evolution of JPM from a scientific concept to practical materials in real world. The large pore size JPM with synergistic effect developed due to the directional liquids transport and charge-screening can efficient separate both the heavy oil and light oil from surfactant stabilized oil-in-water emulsions. Image 1 • A facile and tunable strategy to fabricate the JPM with controllable wettability is proposed. • The as-prepared JPM shows intelligent liquids manipulation behavior. • The liquids manipulation property of the JPM is demonstrated in water harvesting. • The large pore size JPM can realize the separation of surfactant stabilized O/W emulsions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]