The innovative exploitation of diverse inorganic materials in environmental applications has received great scientific attention as a result of the rapid growth of nanotechnology and the expanding variety of nanomaterials currently being produced and developed. The idea of developing multifunctional nanocomposite membranes that can do more than just separate things has been made possible using inorganic nanoparticles as fillers in polymeric matrix. In this work, the nanocomposite was utilized to separate an oil/water emulsion. With the intention of enhancing the capabilities of PVDF-based membrane for oil/water emulsion filtration, synthesized hydrous manganese oxide (HMO) nanoparticles were mixed with poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) polymer to form mixed matrix membrane (MMM). With the addition of HMO nanoparticles, the MMM showed that the membrane wetting properties, hydrophilicity and oleophobicity, were greatly improved owing to the high amount of –OH functional groups. Subsequently, the improved surface hydrophilicity leads to greater water flux of PVDF/HMO MMM (402.0 ± 11.75 L/m² h; oil rejection efficiency = 93.8%) in comparison to pristine PVDF membrane (42.4 ± 3.73 L/m² h; oil rejection efficiency = 96.2%). Furthermore, compared to pristine PVDF membrane, the flux recovery rate (FRR) and reversible fouling (R_r) of the MMM were increased by two–three times, while the irreversible fouling (R_ir) was reduced by half. This demonstrates that the HMO nanoparticles in the nanocomposite improved the water affinity and reduced low possibility of fouling problem. Hence, the modified nanocomposite membrane can be applied in oily wastewater treatment and competed with the current technologies.

由于纳米技术的快速发展和目前正在生产和开发的纳米材料种类的不断扩大，在环境应用中对多种无机材料的创新开发受到了科学界的极大关注。使用无机纳米粒子作为聚合物基质中的填料，开发多功能纳米复合膜的想法已经成为可能，而不仅仅是分离事物。在这项工作中，纳米复合材料用于分离油/水乳液。为了增强基于 PVDF 的膜在油/水乳液过滤中的性能，将合成的含水氧化锰 (HMO) 纳米粒子与聚偏二氟乙烯 (PVDF) 聚合物混合形成混合基质膜 (MMM)。随着HMO纳米颗粒的加入，MMM 表明，由于大量的 –OH 官能团，膜的润湿性能、亲水性和疏油性得到了极大的改善。随后，改善的表面亲水性导致 PVDF/HMO MMM 的水通量更大（402.0 ± 11.75 L/m² 小时；与原始 PVDF 膜（42.4 ± 3.73 L/m ²  h；除油效率 = 96.2%）相比，除油效率 = 93.8%。此外，与原始 PVDF 膜相比， MMM 的通量恢复率 (FRR) 和可逆污染 ( R _{r ) 增加了两到三倍，而不可逆污染 (} R _ir ) 减少了一半。这表明纳米复合材料中的 HMO 纳米颗粒提高了亲水性并降低了结垢问题的可能性。因此，改性纳米复合膜可应用于含油废水处理，并可与现有技术相媲美。