Multi-energies assisted and all-weather recovery of crude oil by superhydrophobic melamine sponge

Abstract

Efficient and safe recovery of high-viscosity marine crude oil spills is still a worldwide challenge. High-viscosity crude oil is difficult to be removed by traditional adsorbent materials. Although some recent developments in photothermal or electric-thermal oil-absorbing materials, the vertical heat transfer inside and the potential hazard of electrical leakage are difficult to be guaranteed. In order to overcome these problems, we polymerized dopamine (DA) in situ on the skeleton surface of the commercial melamine sponge (MS), and further coated the full-wavelength light-absorbing Fe₃O₄ NPs-Graphene (HF-G) on it to obtain the superhydrophobic sponge with excellent photothermal conversion effect, heat conductivity and magnetic heating capabilities (HF-G/PDA@MS). When the thickness of sponge is 5 mm, the HF-G/PDA@MS shows excellent vertical heat conductivity ability, and can absorb about 80 g/g. It also can be combined with an extra electric-heating device to achieve continuous heating to reduce the viscosity and recover crude oil at night or extreme weather. In addition, the temperature of HF-G/PDA@MS can reach about 40 °C by electromagnetic induction heater, indicating that we can use multiple energies-assisted modes to heat the HF-G/PDA@MS to. This work provides a promising solution and theoretical support for all-weather solving offshore crude oil spills pollution and recovery.

Keywords: Hydrophobic/oleophilic property; Melamine sponge; Photothermal; Viscosity reduction.