Membrane fouling is a significant barrier to the development of membrane separation processes, particularly in the treatment of oily wastewater resulting from frequent offshore oil spills. A green and sustainable solution is imperative to address this environmental concern. This paper presents a novel method involving the in-situ growth of superhydrophilic TiSe2 nanospheres on foam titanium via a one-step hydrothermal method. Supported by an external electric field, a dual anti-fouling strategy involving in-situ aeration and dielectrophoresis was developed, resulting in a remarkably improved fouling resistance by 90 %.

Unlike prior methods focusing predominantly on developing super-wettability surfaces for passive anti-fouling, the strategy in this work leveraged the high salinity inherent in seawater to introduce in-situ aeration and dielectrophoresis forces to the filtration process. This innovative approach actively prevented oil droplets from contacting the filtration material surface, achieving effective active anti-fouling. The synthesized TiSe2/TF(TTF) demonstrated separation efficiencies of over 99 % for four different oil-in-water emulsions.