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Referring to catastrophic damages of oil and organic pollution leakage to the aquatic environment, providing a high efficiency technique for the oil–water separation becomes a hot research topic during the recent decade. This study focused on effects of the sponge density and magnesium stearate loadings on the separation performance of superhydrophobic magnesium stearate coated‐polyurethane. The sponges with three densities of 8, 13, and 18 kg m−3 were coated with different magnesium stearate loadings of 5 and 10 wt% by dip‐coating method. A set of various analyzes, including field‐emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), energy‐dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy (EDX), contact angle, absorption rate and capacity, continuous oil–water separation, were conducted in neutral, acidic, and basic conditions. FESEM results demonstrated the sponges became increasingly rough after coating with magnesium stearate. The wettability measurements revealed the sponge density had no significant impacts on the water contact angle, all samples presenting around 175° ± 2° and oil absorption rate less than 1 s. Finally, the absorption capacity of the unmodified and modified sponges for treating various oils and solvents demonstrated that the coated spongy could absorb a wide range of oils and organic solvents with capacity range of 15–75 times their weight, depending on the different densities and loadings.

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