A robust and antibacterial superhydrophobic cotton fabric with sunlight-driven self-cleaning performance for oil/water separation

In this work, a durable and sunlight-driven self-cleaning superhydrophobic cotton fabric was developed as a multifunctional oil/water separation material. First of all, Ag/AgCl was successfully deposited on the polydopamine modified cotton fabric surface by electrostatic adsorption, then the Ag/AgCl loaded fabric was coated by the polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) via simple dip-coating method. The as-prepared cotton fabric (PDMS-Ag/AgCl@CF) presented the superhydrophobic property with water contact angle about 155°. Meanwhile, the prepared PDMS-Ag/AgCl@CF exhibited great tolerance and resistance to broad pH and various organic solvents, and it can also withstand 50 cycles of abrasion or 60 min of ultrasound treatment without an apparent decrease of superhydrophobicity, indicating its outstanding mechanical durability. As expected, this durable superhydrophobic fabric can availably separate various oil/water mixtures by gravity-driven force with high separation efficiency (over 97.8%), and it possessed good reusability. Additionally, the PDMS-Ag/AgCl@CF exhibited an outstanding self-cleaning performance under sunlight irradiation, due to visible light photocatalytic performance of Ag/AgCl. Finally, the resultant cotton fabric displayed good antibacterial activity. Therefore, in consideration of its prominent comprehensive performances, it is expected that the PDMS-Ag/AgCl@CF can be used as a promising material for oily water remediation.