title: A versatile approach to produce superhydrophobic materials used for oil-water separation.
abstract: Designing functional materials that can be used for oil-water separation in an efficient and cost-effective process is highly desired yet still challenging. Herein, three functional materials used for oil-water separation are readily produced by a dip coating process. Three typical porous materials including copper mesh, fabric, and sponge were dipped into the solution of polyfluorowax-hydrophobic SiO2 to alter their surface texture and chemistry, allowing them to exhibit superhydrophobic property. It was found that the resulting superhydrophobic copper mesh and fabric can be used as a membrane to separate oil-water mixture efficiency; while the obtained superhydrophobic sponge was demonstrated as an oil sorbent scaffold to absorb oil from the oil-water mixture selectively. More importantly, these superhydrophobic materials can retain their oil-water separation efficiency even after 10 cycles of oil-water separation.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tianshui Road 18th, Lanzhou 730000, PR China.
authors.forename: Xiaotao
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tianshui Road 18th, Lanzhou 730000, PR China. Electronic address: zzzhang@licp.cas.cn.
authors.forename: Zhaozhu
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tianshui Road 18th, Lanzhou 730000, PR China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100039, PR China.
authors.forename: Bo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Ge
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tianshui Road 18th, Lanzhou 730000, PR China. Electronic address: xhmen@licp.cas.cn.
authors.forename: Xuehu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Men
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tianshui Road 18th, Lanzhou 730000, PR China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100039, PR China.
authors.forename: Xiaoyan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tianshui Road 18th, Lanzhou 730000, PR China.
authors.forename: Qunji
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Xue
keywords: Dip-coating; Oil-removal; Oil–water separation; Porous materials; Recyclability