Preparation of superhydrophobic materials for oil/water separation and oil absorption using PMHS-TEOS-derived xerogel and polystyrene

Fabrication of suerhydrophobic materials towards oil/water separation and oil absorption has been receiving great attention nowadays, due to the significant increase of industrial oily wastewater and frequent accident of oil spill. In most previous studies, the usage of expensive precursors restricted the wide applications of prepared superhydrophobic materials. In this work, superhydrophobic filter paper, fabric and polyester sponges were fabricated by dip-coating the mixed solution of polystyrene and xerogels, which were prepared with tetraethoxysilane and polymethylhydrosiloxane, based on previous work. The asfabricated fabric can effectively separate oil and water mixtures and possesses excellent reusability; more significantly, the materials maintained its good hydrophobic and excellent oil/water separation capacity even after ten cycles. Interestingly enough, the stability was provided, as a result, the fabric still exhibited superhydrophobic after 100 abrasion times and showed high repellency towards many liquids with different pH values. Additionally, the coated polyester sponges can quickly absorb various oil and organic liquid, which will offer a practical application for the treatment of seawater or oily wastewater. By contrast, this experiment process is simple and avoided using costly fluoro-chemicals or complicated fabrication process.