Facile Fabrication of Highly Hydrophobic Onion-like Candle Soot-Coated Mesh for Durable Oil/Water Separation

• Published in: Nanomaterials (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 12; no. 5; p. 761
• Main Authors: Song, Jiajia, Liu, Na, Li, Jiakai, Cao, Yingze, Cao, Haijie
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 24-02-2022; MDPI
• Subjects: Carbon; Coatings; Contact angle; Durability; Efficiency; Energy; Environmental conditions; Ethanol; Fabrication; filtrating material; highly hydrophobic; Hydrophobic surfaces; Hydrophobicity; Moisture content; Morphology; Nanoparticles; Oil pollution; Oil spills; oil/water separation; onion-like candle soot; Onions; Porous materials; Reagents; reusability and durability; Saline solutions; Separation; Silicon wafers; Soot; Spectrum analysis; Substrates; Wastewater; Water content; Water pollution; Water purification; China; Japan; filtrating material; highly hydrophobic; oil/water separation; reusability and durability; onion-like candle soot
• ISSN: 2079-4991; 2079-4991
• DOI: 10.3390/nano12050761

Although sundry superhydrophobic filtrating materials have been extensively exploited for remediating water pollution arising from frequent oil spills and oily wastewater emission, the expensive reagents, rigorous reaction conditions, and poor durability severely restrict their water purification performance in practical applications. Herein, we present a facile and cost-effective method to fabricate highly hydrophobic onion-like candle soot (CS)-coated mesh for versatile oil/water separation with excellent reusability and durability. Benefiting from a superglue acting as a binder, the sub-micron CS coating composed of interconnected and intrinsic hydrophobic carbon nanoparticles stably anchors on the surface of porous substrates, which enables the mesh to be highly hydrophobic (146.8 ± 0.5°)/superoleophilic and resist the harsh environmental conditions, including acid, alkali, and salt solutions, and even ultrasonic wear. The as-prepared mesh can efficiently separate light or heavy oil/water mixtures with high separation efficiency (>99.95%), among which all the water content in filtrates is below 75 ppm. Besides, such mesh retains excellent separation performance and high hydrophobicity even after 20 cyclic tests, demonstrating its superior reusability and durability. Overall, this work not only makes the CS-coated mesh promising for durable oil/water separation, but also develops an eco-friendly approach to construct robust superhydrophobic surfaces.