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An intelligent superhydrophobic absorbent with electrothermal conversion performance for effective high-viscosity oil removal and oil–water separation

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Abstract

Functionalized superwetting materials that are able to deal with the contamination problems of industrial and domestic oily wastewater are urgently demanded in the field of oil–water separation. In this work, we fabricated superhydrophobic absorbent with excellent electrothermal conversion performance through the liquid-phase reduction and hierarchically assemble methods. The adhesive layer of poly-dopamine (PDA), Cu/carbon microspheres composites (Cu/CMSs) and the fluoride-free hydrophobic reagents were successively assembled on the absorbent cotton to obtain the intelligent absorbent with excellent superhydrophobicity (WCA = 154°), satisfactory oil–water separation efficiency (> 98.3%) and high oil absorption capacity (12–20 g/g). Surprisingly, this intelligent absorbent displayed an excellent electrothermal conversion capacity, which provided the basis for the collection of high-viscosity oil and the low-melting solid oil. On the basis of the excellent electrothermal conversion performance, it also could be utilized as a filter to effectively realize the continuous separation process of high-viscosity crude oil/water mixture under low-voltage conditions. Therefore, this intelligent absorbent possesses broad application prospects in high-viscosity oil–water separation, oily wastewater treatment, oil spill cleaning, crude oil extraction, petrochemicals and other fields.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 51904228), the Youth Innovation Team of Shaanxi Universities (grant nos. 21JP068), the Shaanxi Provincial Science and Technology Department (grant nos. 2019JM-371), the Outstanding Youth Science Fund of **’an University of Science and Technology (grant nos. 2019YQ2-09), and Huyang Scholar Program of **’an University of Science and Technology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, **’an University of Science and Technology, **’an, 710054, China

    Xuedan Zhu, Yajie Pang, **mei He, Yaxin Wu, Jianwei Ge, Lei Shen & Mengnan Qu

  2. College of Safety Science and Engineering, **’an University of Science and Technology, **’an, 710054, China

    Jie Yang

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  1. Xuedan Zhu
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  2. Yajie Pang
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Contributions

Xuedan Zhu contributed to conceptualization, methodology, writing—original draft, supervision, project administration. Yajie Pang contributed to writing—review and editing, methodology, software, data curation. **mei He contributed to methodology, project administration. Yaxin Wu contributed to formal analysis. Jianwei Ge contributed to visualization and software. Lei Shen contributed to software. Jie Yang contributed to resources. Mengnan Qu contributed to funding acquisition and validation.

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Correspondence to **mei He or Mengnan Qu.

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Zhu, X., Pang, Y., He, J. et al. An intelligent superhydrophobic absorbent with electrothermal conversion performance for effective high-viscosity oil removal and oil–water separation. J Mater Sci 57, 18787–18805 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-022-07805-5

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