Facile synthesis of a two-tier hierarchical structured superhydrophobic-superoleophilic melamine sponge for rapid and efficient oil/water separation

Jiucun Chen; Hui You; Liqun Xu; Tianhao Li; Xianquan Jiang; Chang Ming Li

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2017.07.066

Facile synthesis of a two-tier hierarchical structured superhydrophobic-superoleophilic melamine sponge for rapid and efficient oil/water separation

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2017 Nov 15:506:659-668. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2017.07.066. Epub 2017 Jul 18.

Authors

Jiucun Chen¹, Hui You², Liqun Xu², Tianhao Li², Xianquan Jiang², Chang Ming Li²

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Materials and Energy, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China; Key Laboratory of Luminescent and Real-Time Analytical Chemistry (Southwest University), Ministry of Education, College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China. Electronic address: chenjc@swu.edu.cn.
² Faculty of Materials and Energy, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China.

PMID: 28763770
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2017.07.066

Abstract

Oil leakages often cause fatal disasters for environmental pollution but an efficient treatment of the oil spills is still very challenging. Sponge-substrates with superhydrophobicity and superoleophilicity have been attracted much attention for oil/water separation. In this study, an inexpensive commercial melamine sponge was chemically modified for the uses of oil spills treatment by oil/water separation. Inspiring from the superhydrophobic property of lotus leaf, pyrrole was polymerized by a simple vapor-phase deposition to encapsulate the raw melamine-formaldehyde (MF) sponge. The as-formed thin polypyrrole walls were utilized as reducing reagent to generate Ag nanoparticles on the capsuled sponge. Accordingly, a superhydrophobic melamine sponge with a two-tier hierarchical structure was achieved after fluorination, and this material was applied to absorb oil from water. The absorption capacity, absorption rate and recyclability were investigated. This superhydrophobic sponge exhibited an efficient and fast oil/water separation performance in complicated environment and could be applied in industrial production because of its low cost and simple fabrication procedure. This study presents a facile strategy for the fabrication of efficient oil sorbents based on a two-tier hierarchical structure, providing a novel means for the upgrading of engineered sorption materials.

Keywords: Melamine sponge; Micro/nano structure; Oil/water separation; Superhydrophobic; Superoleophilic.