Marine oil spill cleanup is one of the major challenges in recent years due to its detrimental effect on our ecosystem. Hence, the development of new superhydrophobic oil absorbent materials is in high demand. The third-generation porous materials, namely metal−organic frameworks (MOFs), have drawn great attention due to their fascinating properties. In this work, a superhydrophobic MOF with UiO-66 (SH-UiO-66) topology was synthesized strategically with a new fluorinated dicarboxylate linker to absorb oil selectively from water. The fully characterized superhydrophobic MOF showed extreme water repellency with an advancing water contact angle (WCA) of 160°with a contact angle hysteresis (CAH) of 8°. The newly synthesized porous MOF (S BET = 873 m 2 g −1 ) material with high WCA found its promising application in oil/ water separation. The superhydrophobic SH-UiO-66 MOF was further used for the in-situ coating on naturally abundant cotton fiber to make a superhydrophobic MOF@cotton composite material. The MOF-coated cotton fiber composite (SH-UiO-66@CFs) showed water repellency with a WCA of 163°and a low CAH of 4°. The flexible superhydrophobic SH-UiO-66@CFs showed an oil absorption capacity more than 2500 wt % for both heavy and light oils at room temperature. The superoleophilicity of SH-UiO-66@CFs was further exploited to separate light floating oil as well as sedimentary heavy oil from water. SH-UiO-66@CFs material can also separate oil from the oil/water mixture by gravity-directed active filtration. Hence, the newly developed MOF-based composite material has high potential as an oil absorbent material for marine oil spill cleanup.

Different bio-inspired liquid wettability are derived through modulation of chemistry and topography—but the chemical modulation process emerged as a superior approach for embedding desired wettability and other relevant physical properties.

An alkali metal ion assisted Michael addition reaction between acrylate and amine groups is strategically exploited in the synthesis of a chemically reactive and tailored hierarchical topography for addressing important fundamental aspects of biomimicked interfaces.

In the recent past, biomimicked superliquid repellent interfaces were recognized as the prospective and energy efficient solution for remediation of oil contamination, and mostly two phase oil/water mixtures that are either composed of light oil or heavy oil are demonstrated for gravity driven and environmentally friendly oil/water separation. In reality, the aqueous phase is contaminated with both heavy and light oils. Moreover, the demonstration of common oil/water separation with a two phase system under physically/chemically challenging settings is rare, due to poor durability of the synthesized biomimicked membranes. Here in this report, amine reactive and covalently cross-linked multilayers of chemically reactive polymeric nanocomplex/aminographene oxide nanosheets are adopted for fabricating two distinct durable and tensile deformation tolerant selective-liquid-permeable membranes. Further these biomimicked membranes are exploited in the gravity driven selective filtration of oil and aqueous phase from the three phase oil/water mixture under practically relevant diverse and severely challenging settings, in an unprecedented manner. A prototype was developed through strategic association of both fish scale and lotus leaf inspired stretchable membranes, for simultaneous and active filtration of both heavy/light oils and aqueous phasesfrom their respective mixtures and both the separated oil and aqueous phases were collected in two individual containers. Both the light/heavy oil phases selectively passed through the stretchable superhydrophobic membrane and the aqueous phase filtrated through the underwater superoleophobic membrane. The developed prototype is highly efficient in repetitive (at least 25 times) separation and collection of both oil and water phasessimultaneously, irrespective of density, surface tension, and viscosity of the oil phase and chemical complexity in the aqueous phase.

In the past two decades, bio-inspired liquid wettability has received widespread attention. Various chemistries and strategies have been proposed for co-optimization of essential features (both topographical and chemical) that confer...