In situ construction of green multiscale nanosilicon-based sponges for stable oil-water separation

ABSTRACT

Oil and industrial wastewater spills have caused serious ecological impacts, thus superhydrophobic materials are paid much attention for their unique oil/water selective adsorption properties. Herein, we propose a green and efficient method for preparing superhydrophobic adsorbents for oil/water separation. Superhydrophobic melamine sponges (SMS) were prepared by in situ growth of nanosilica on melamine sponge skeletons followed by surface modification with hexadecyltrimethoxysilane (HTMS). The contact angle, oil-water separation, oil absorption, recyclability, acid resistance and alkali resistance of SMS were characterised to evaluate its performance. These results showed that the prepared SMS not only exhibits superhydrophobicity with a water contact angle of 152°, but also has a strong adsorption capacity of 42–105 times its own weight for various oils and organic reagents, and outstanding recoverability with a retention of adsorption capacity of about 98% after 20 repeated cycles. In addition, it exhibits excellent environmental tolerance over a wide pH range. These excellent properties make it valuable for practical applications in the field of oil-water separation.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Melamine sponge
• nanosilica
• superhydrophobicity
• recyclability
• oil/water separation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This research is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Projects No. 51074133) , Project of State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation (Projects PLN 201930 and PLN 2022-03), Projects of Application Foundation in Sichuan Province (Projects No. 2019YJ0421), General project of Sichuan Academic Achievement Analysis and Application Research Center (XSCG 2019-016) and General Project of Open Research Project of State Key Laboratory of Reservoir Geology and Development Engineering (PLN201930).