Magnetic superhydrophobic sponge with 3D interpenetrating network structure coating for multimodal driven oil/water separation
Revolutionizing oil spill cleanup, a study unveils a novel 3D interpenetrating network-coated sponge, created through a simple dipping technique, showcasing exceptional superhydrophobicity, robustness, and magnetic properties.
A simple dipping technique was employed to construct a 3D interpenetrating network structure coating, which was used to prepare a robust, superhydrophobic and magnetic sponge. The modified sponge exhibits rapid adsorption behavior, high adsorption capacity (up to 60–159 times its own dry weight or above 119 %–186 % of its own volume for various oils/organic solvents), stable superhydrophobicity and reusability.
After 100 times extrusion adsorption test, it retains 70 % adsorption capacity and the WCA is still over 140°. More importantly, the modified sponge presents excellent robustness and chemical stability after a long time of chemical reagent treatment (HCl, KOH, NaCl) and mechanical friction test 1000 cycles. Notably, the magnet, pump, self-adsorption, gravity and solar-driven oil/water separation devices based on the modified sponge also were applied, particularly the separation of crude oil mixtures via the solar-driven mode, demonstrating the broad prospects of such modified sponges in actual applications. As such, this study not only provides an environmentally friendly, efficient, robust and low-cost design strategy for multi-state oil spill cleaning, but also focuses on solving the problem of material recovery and the use of materials in harsh environment.
The study has been published in Progress in Organic Coatings, Volume 186, January 2024.
